[Shop-talk] Dimmable CFLs at Home Depot

[Randall]

> What do you do with the old ones?

Not sure if I should admit this in public, I've been just tossing them in
the trash.

>  Is there any scrap metal or recycle
> value to them?

Some, probably.  But they are potted in a very unpleasant tarry substance
and I doubt there is more than a pound of copper in each one (if it's copper
at all).  Most of the weight is probably the iron cores.

The price of scrap copper does appear to be up, it's now some $1.60/pound
... still not worth it to me to try to salvage the copper from them.  And if
I saved them up and sold them as-is to a scrap dealer for barely enough to
cover my cost of transporting them; they would probably set fire to the tar,
which would likely be just as bad as in the landfill.  That's the usual way
of recycling copper wire and so on.

Randall