Commissaries 'going green' with fluorescent lights

Want to use up to 75 percent less energy every time you turn on a lamp and save money on your energy bills at the same time? It's as easy as unscrewing your incandescent light bulb and replacing it with a compact fluorescent light bulb - those long-lasting, swirl-shaped bulbs in the household goods aisle at your commissary.

Lighting accounts for roughly 20 percent of the average home's energy bill, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. To encourage commissary customers to decrease their energy use, DeCA is partnering with Osram Sylvania and General Electric to offer great prices on compact fluorescent lights - called CFLs. The ambitious plan: Sell 1 million compact fluorescent bulbs to customers in 2008, more than doubling the number currently sold
in commissaries worldwide.

"Rising utility costs, coupled with an increasing awareness on the part of our customers about the benefits of conservation, have given us incentive to introduce this '1-million' plan," said Rick Page, DeCA's acting director.

"We work hard at all our stores to cut energy costs and protect the environment by building energy-efficient stores, watching our energy consumption, and recycling plastic, wood and paper products. These are just a few of the things we do as part of our corporate policy," he said. "Now, we're taking it one step further by offering customers an opportunity to 'go green' with us by conserving energy in their homes."

Although CFLs cost more than a traditional bulb, they use less electricity, last up to 10 times longer, produce 75 percent less heat, and save consumers as much as $30 over the life of each bulb. In addition, CFLs now come in a variety of shapes and sizes to fit almost any light fixture in your home. Servicemembers stationed overseas and living in off-base communities, however, may have homes with different voltage requirements than CFLs offered in the commissary.

DOE recommends consumers replace their traditional light bulbs with the more energy-efficient CFLs in all high-use fixtures in a home. High-use is defined as fixtures used at least 15 minutes at a time or several hours per day, such as those in family and living rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, bedrooms and outdoors.

According to DOE's Web site, if every American family replaces just five bulbs, we would save close to $8 billion each year in energy costs, and prevent the greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from nearly 10 million cars.

CFLs offer many benefits, but they contain mercury. To prevent mercury from ending up in landfills, the Environmental Protection Agency recommends customers visit http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling or http://www.earth911.org to identify local recycling options for CFLs, when possible. Customers living in military housing can check with their installation for recycling options, and servicemembers living overseas in off-base communities can investigate host government programs.