Energy efficient lightbulbs and eco-friendly detergents have become really rather good. In the past, energy-efficient lightbulbs took ages to warm up and were irritating, and green detergents were not good enough at cleaning. But because they’ve had to compete against more traditional products, the marketplace has pushed the companies that produce them to make them as effective as the traditional products, and make them more cost-effective for consumers to boot. That competitive process has resulted in a better outcome, I’d suggest, that had government come along in the 1980s and forced everyone to buy the green products.
Dr Matt Prescott, writing on the BBC News website last year, called for the traditional incandescent light bulb to be banned, in order to cut carbon emissions. I can sympathise with his sentiment, but I think it’s going to get increasingly difficult to buy incandescent tungsten filament light bulbs anyway - in the same way as it’s still possible to buy carbon filament lightbulbs, but you have to go to a specialist distributor. Supermarkets see selling energy-efficient lightbulbs (compact fluorescent light bulbs) as a good way to make money, and that’s a good thing. US superstore Wal-Mart has announced its push to sell 100m compact fluorescent light bulbs by the end of the year. Tesco is similarly trying to boost sales of such bulbs, recently halving their price. We are surely approaching that tipping point where eco-friendly light bulbs thrash the traditional ones in the marketplace.
Tags: energy-efficient lightbulbs, Wal-Mart