What types of lamps need to be recycled?
Under federal regulations, if a mercury-contain lamp fails to pass the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) it is considered hazardous. Learn more about the TCLP. Under federal regulations, the vast majority of mercury-containing lamps are considered a hazardous waste. Note that if you do not test your mercury-containing lamps and prove them non-hazardous, assume they are hazardous waste and handle them accordingly. All mercury-containing lamps, whether hazardous or not, will release mercury into the environment when broken outside of a controlled recycling process. Therefore, EPA encourages the recycling of all mercury-containing lamps. These lamps include all fluorescent lamps and all high intensity discharge lamps (including mercury vapor, metal halide, and high pressure sodium). State regulations are generally equivalent to or more stringent than federal regulations. Some states that have more stringent regulations are California, Massachusetts and Vermont. For more in
