Our purchase of a Premium Bulb Eater provides both product and service that exceeds the highest standards of compliance, safety, efficiency and cost.  The Bulb Eater crushes fluorescent lamps and filters mercury for proper disposal.  A fluorescent lamp consists of a glass shell, a high vacuum, a small amount of liquid mercury, evaporated mercury, some phosphor powder, the metal end-caps and heated filaments.  When lamps are sent to landfills or incinerated as an alternative disposal method, mercury vapors are released that can travel over 200 miles.  Each year, an estimated 600 million fluorescent lamps are disposed of in U.S. landfills; they produce an estimated 30,000 pounds of mercury waste.   Proper disposal of lamps together with the recycling of the lamps will greatly reduce the mercury dilemma and create a much safer environment.  Although ACU purchases ECO friendly fluorescent lamps that are approved to be disposed of in the landfill, they still contain a small percentage of mercury.  We feel that purchasing this equipment to dispose of the lamps in this environment friendly manner is the right thing for the university to do.