Will halogens and incandescent lamps be banned?
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Ilkka Pekanheimo, a Daylight Lighting Designer from Finnish corporation AD-Lux Ltd, predicts that there will not be halogens and incandescent lamps at hand at the end of next decade. There are grounds enough to assume so.
- Australia has decided to ban the marketing and selling of incandescent lamps from the year 2010 on. Because halogens belong to the same lamp group that incandescent, these lamps may also be banned.
- Many other countries like Canada and USA are following; for example the state of California is planning a similar ban.
- EU Commission plans to make suggestions to improve energy efficiency of lamps. This may cause banning of incandescent lamps and maybe halogens too.
- The lamp manufacturing industry in Europe told that they are suggesting to ban incandescent lamps from the year 2015 on. So they also think there is good reason to ban these lamps, only their banning schedule is 5 years later. But under these 5 years there could be many fires and other harms caused by these lamps that the sooner the ban starts the better.
- There is a suggestion made to EU to ban incandescent lamps from the year 2010 on.
- Because it's very likely that halogens and incandescent lamps will be banned in the district of EU, the people should be aware of this now when they are buying new lighting fixtures that contain these lamps.
- If a lighting fixture that uses incandescent lamps is bought, one should test if a energy saving lamp fits in the fixture; being a little larger and longer it doesn't always fit. And it would be smarter and environmentally friendly to start using energy saving lamps now.
- Halogens and incandescent lamps have a negative effect to the climate change. This is one of the main reasons that led to Australia's decision to ban these lamps. And EU is also aware of this when they make their decision.
- These lamps consume five times more energy than fluorescent and energy saving lamps.
- Safety issues: These lamps get so hot that they make risk for fire safety. Halogens and incandescent candle lamps have high risk to explode.
- Halogens dazzle and it can cause damage especially to children's eyes.
- Halogens can cause migraine when people are walking under downlight halogen lamps (halogens attached to the sealing surface pointing straight down). It is because of the low frequency light. The effect is similar to flashing light.
Ilkka Pekanheimo
Daylight Lighting Designer
AD-Lux Ltd, Finland
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