fluorescent lamp fixtures - recycling, ballasts, and LED tube conversion

I'm trying to avoid buying new fluorescent light tubes, as they contain mercury and it's hard to turn them in for recycling after they've gone bad. You can't just put them in your recycling bin, and from what I can tell, most stores which take CFLs for recycling don't take the long tubes.

Here in Columbia SC, if you live in city limits, you can take advantage of the city's E-Waste Recycling Program. If you're not in city limits, you may be able to turn fluorescent tubes in as part of Richland County's E-Waste recycling program* (mentioned on the same page), but I'm not sure. Otherwise, you may need to wait for one of the special Recycling Events, where various items can be dropped off. But those only happen about once a year.

*I haven't been able to find the "Lower Richland Drop-off Center" on the map using Google's street view, and I'm hesitant to drive all the way out there looking for it.
I found the "Richland County C&D Landfill" (listed at 1070 Caughman Road North) on the map, but it is not at the point where Google Maps shows that address to be. If you follow the road to the west, the name of the road changes to "Landfill Rd", and *that* is where the landfill is at. But its weekend hours are very limited, so going there would be inconvenient for me.

I did however find a local store which accepts the 4 foot tubes for recycling, for a small fee. Batteries Plus Bulbs charges 48 cents per tube. Unfortunately, they only accept ballasts in 5-gallon quantities, and at a much higher fee.

Something I've learned while researching all this is that the ballasts in these lamp fixtures can contain hazardous chemicals too. Ballasts manufactured before 1978 contained PCBs. The ones manufactured after 1978 were often marked as not containing PCBs. But 4 foot tubes manufactured until 1985, and 8 foot tubes manufactured until 1991, may contain DEHP, another dangerous chemical.

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My garage is lit by 6 fluorescent lamp fixtures. The bulbs in 2 of them had gone bad, so I decided to convert them over to using LED tubes instead. This requires removing the ballasts and re-wiring the fixtures, but appears to be fairly simple to do. I may post some comparison photos of the fluorescent tubes versus the LED ones, once I finish that project.

pride

At work, a corporate diversity email was sent out in honor of LGBT Pride month. I thought the sentiment was nice. It was similar to other ones we've gotten for African-American History month, and Hispanic-American pride, etc.

I heard a co-worker a few cubes away, however, joking/scoffing at the email. Saying she sometimes wished she could unsubscribe from all these corporate emails. "When are we going to get a heterosexual pride month?" Something dismissive of transsexual people. And then something like "I don't think we have anyone (LGBT) on this floor, do we?" (simply in a curious questioning tone).

The way she said all this didn't sound hateful to me; I could believe she doesn't really have anything against gay people. (And she probably has no experience with real trans people.) But it also sounded like she doesn't get it.

I started thinking that I could tell her that if she wanted to celebrate pride in her heterosexuality, that's fine. But the reason why LGBT people need Pride marches and such, is to counter-balance the shame, fear, and stigma they've grown up with.

Personally, my gender-neutral trans-ness and asexuality is mostly invisible to others, and I haven't encountered any such stigma myself. It's not something I feel a need to have pride in, nor is it something that I've ever felt bad or ashamed of.

But for gay and trans people who haven't been so lucky and who have faced hatred, bullying, and mocking during their lives, who've felt the need to hide their identity from others, the *pride* is necessary simply to offset that weight of negativity that they've encountered. It's necessary, simply to be able to feel good about themselves. And it's a way to share camaraderie with others.

It's not the same thing to be told, "you're gay and that's ok now, but don't flaunt it". Because not flaunting it can be interpreted as needing to hide it, as any expression of gayness can be interpreted as a flaunting thereof.

Anyway. I wasn't really planning to tell her all that; it simply crossed my mind. Then I thought, she's just reacting to an experience she's not used to; she'll get over it. Someday she'll get used to these kind of things, and that's part of the point of them.

Then I had the idea to send her an email telling her that yes there's someone LGBT on the floor, that I'm trans though probably not in any way she is familiar with. At that thought, my pulse started racing, and I could hear and feel the blood whooshing in my head*. I quickly decided that I couldn't compose any well written email in such a mental state. So I went out to lunch instead.

*Similar to what it used to do in school/college, whenever I seriously considered raising my hand to ask the teacher a question, or to comment on something. That's a big reason why I didn't do that very often; it was so very nerve-wracking.

I do however often feel that I'm not trans enough to call myself trans to others. That they'd say I'm not really trans. They'd deny my identity. (Or laugh and start thinking of me as weird.) They can't even conceive of it. So why even tell anyone?