June 5, 2013

Old UV lamps & product stewardship

Rural areas are often sadly under-served when it comes to recovering and recycling used water treatment products like spent UV lamps, ballasts and filters . . .

Fortunately, Gabriola has a great recycling organization in GIRO, and for several years Withey's Water has been bundling all the used, expired UV lamps we replace on service calls and dropping them off at GIRO for safe storage and disposal  -- due to the mercury content of all germicidal UV lamps.

Now GIRO is officially registered with LampRecycle BC to provide this service.  It is likely that soon an eco-fee or other disposal donation amount will be applied, and we will either provide that  service on cost recovery for our customers and/or encourage everyone to bring their old UV lamps to GIRO themselves.

Old carbon and sediment filters have no recovery/reuse program in this part of the world. 
Our only advice here is to buy better quality filters, that work well and last longer (see some of my older posts re: choosing filters), look after your collection and storage systems so you change filters only when necessary, and consider using some reusable filters if you have an efficient way to pressure wash and clean them regularly and don't mind the hassle.