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Trades Training
USGBC
Excerpted from LEED 2009 for Healthcare
MR Credit 4.1: PBT source reduction - mercury in lamps
Intent
To reduce the release of Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBTs) chemicals associated with the life cycle of building materials.
Requirements
In addition to the credit goals outlined in MR Prerequisite 2: PBT Source Reduction—Mercury, specify and install long lasting reduced mercury fluorescent lamps consistent with the following minimum criteria:
Potential Technologies & Strategies
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4 Comments
PBT Source Reduction - No Circular Fluorescent Lamps?
Does anyone know the reasoning / sustainability behind not specifying circular fluorescent lamps? For LEED HC MR4.1 PBT Source Reduction - Mercury in Lamps, it says Do not specify them. Thanks!
My understanding is that these are considerably less efficient and less regulated than other higher use lamps, and as a result effectively have more mercury per lumen1. A lumen is a unit of luminous flux equal to the light emitted in a unit solid angle by a uniform point source of 1 candle intensity. 2. A measurement of light output. output. (That's the case for the US but not the EU.) I've also heard that they're harder to recycle, but don't know the details.
Use as an innovation credit
Has anyone had success in using this as an innovation credit for a health care project (or any project) registered under LEED NC or LEED CI?
Peter:
We have usually opted to use the LEED-EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. version of low-mercury (and have gotten it on over 50 of our 182 certified projects), but I don't see any reason not to use the LEED HC version, since it is actually a little simpler.
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