Forum discussion

EBOM-2009 MRc4:Sustainable Purchasing—Reduced Mercury in Lamps

Sylvania Ecologic Lights

Our project team considering purchasing ECOLOGIC lamps from Sylvania to fulfill this credit, however we aren’t certain if these are accepted under LEED. The literature claims that they "are engineered to pass the Federal TCLP test for hazardous waste determination," however, the LEED EB Canada guide states that TCLP tests are not adequate indicators of mercury content for the purposes of LEED (our project is located in Montreal). Has anyone used this line of lights to meet the low-mercury lighting standard for a project in Canada? Thank you.

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Mon, 04/30/2012 - 12:47

You'll need the actualy mg of mercury per lamp. Sylvania doesn't publish this information as easily as some other companies. I found on their website a LEED-EB calculator. It's an excel file that you download from their Tools & Resources section. It will give you the mercury content of each lamp. http://www.sylvania.com/en-us/tools-and-resources/Pages/default.aspx#

Mon, 04/30/2012 - 13:44

Patrick, one thing to keep in mind is that there isn't a distinction between "accepted" or "non-accepted" lamps for EBOM MRc4. The final documentation will be a purchasing plan that shows a total weighted average mercury content less than 90 picograms/lumen-hour and a list that documents the total weighted average mercury content of lamps purchased during the performance period. So, your purchasing plan can be a combination of different types of lamps, with both high and low mercury levels, that would be installed in a perfect world in your project building. The LEED credit form uses all the technical lamp data (mg of mercury, rated lamp life and mean lumens) to calculate the weighed average mercury content of this collection of lamps. Using manufacturer data, including the Sylvania tool that Bill mentions above, you can gather all this technical data and come up with a purchasing plan that will meet the LEED requirements. Then, you just need to purchase some lamps during the performance period. Ideally, you would be purchasing one of the lamp types listed in your purchasing plan to replace one or more burned out lamps at the end of their useful life. Remember that all of your purchased lamps must also have a total weighted average mercury content of 90 picograms/lumen-hour or less in order to earn this credit.

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