Lightbulbs to get a LIGHTING FACTS Label

E-mail this story to a friend

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has created a label, much like the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Nutrition Facts label, that will be placed on lightbulbs in mid 2011 in order to help consumers decide which type of bulb is most adequate for their lighting needs.

The Lighting Facts label will indicate the lightbulb's wattage, brightness (lumens), light appearance (on a warm to cool scale), estimated annual energy cost and estimated life expectancy. These labels will be placed on the back of lightbulb packages and will "emphasize the brightness of bulbs" on the front of the package instead of "the current wattage information that's now prominently featured."

The reason such emphasis will be placed on lumens is because most consumer's do not know the difference between the varied types of lighting that are available in stores such as halogens, LEDs and compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL). Lumens are more useful in helping to select lightbulbs because it indicates brightness of a bulb while wattage indicates how much power the bulb will use. For example, a 13-watt compact fluorescent lightbulb and a 60-watt incandescent bulb "typically have similar light output, but the CFL uses less than a quarter as much energy to do so."

Not only are CFL's better energy-savers, but they are better money-savers as well. Based on the national average rate for electricity, using a 13-watt CFL instead of a 60-watt incandescent bulb could save consumer's more than $57 over the life of the CFL. The best spiral CFL's tested by ConsumerReports.org cost $1.50 and last approximately 10,000 hours, while the incandescent bulbs cost $.50 and only last 1,000 hours.

In addition to the Lighting Facts label, lightbulb packages must also provide an additional label if those particular bulbs contain mercury. The lightbulbs with mercury content, such as many compact fluorescent lightbulbs, will have a label that says, "Contains Mercury: For more on cleanup and safe disposal, visit epa.gov/cfl."

The FTC is currently seeking public comments on "several issues that might be relevant to future changes to lightbulb labeling requirements, such as whether new labeling requirements should be applied to candelabra bulbs." To submit a public comment, visit the PDF version of the Federal Register notice that will be issued by the FTC.