Confused when shopping for light bulbs? This episode breaks down what kind of light bulbs to use for each space in your home and the environmental impact of light bulbs too.
Soft White (Yellow Range, 2700K to 3000K): bedrooms, living rooms or dens
Warm White (Between the Yellow and White Ranges, 3000K to 4000K): kitchens, workspaces and bathrooms.
Bright White (Between the White and Blue Ranges, 4000K to 5000K): kitchens and bathrooms
Daylight (Blue Range, 5000K to 6500K): reading
Additional reading:
The other day, my friend and I were having this conversation and she was like, “Megan, oh my gosh, it is so hard to pick light bulbs these days. And I couldn't agree more. If you grew up with good old fashioned watt light bulbs, trying to navigate the light bulb aisle these days makes my eyes go crossed. Do I want bright light? Do I want daylight? How much wattage do I need? It’s not what I’ve been used to my whole life.
Then I started to dig in to the environmental impact of LED light bulbs and I found some pretty enlightening information, pretty sad information as well. I don't like to dwell on the negative, but there are some pretty big impacts that LED light bulbs have.
But first let's get into how to choose a light bulb these days. If you listen to my episode with Lara, you know that lighting is so important. Lighting can really impact the feel of a room, it has an impact on the mood. Sometimes you need brighter light so you can see what you're doing, like when you're putting your makeup on. Or maybe you're doing some work at your desk and you need a bright light or you're sewing or knitting and you need that bright light. But you don't always necessarily want that bright light. So you do really want to think about the kinds of light that you need for that lamp that you're using when you're looking for that light bulb. If you're around my age, in the old fashioned incandescent bulbs, wattage was linked to how bright the bulb was, right? Well now it's not like that because wattage really shows how much energy is used and lumens are the amount of light. So more lumens equals brighter light, fewer lumens equals a dimmer light. And again, the watts are the amount of energy a light bulb uses.
The light color is a Kelvin. You’ll often just see the “K” on light bulb packaging and that is really the temperature scale. It's going to go from warm to cool. Soft white is in the yellow range and that's 2700 to 3000 Kelvins and that's the standard color that you're going to be used to from your old incandescent bulbs. Soft white is perfect for bedrooms, living rooms, dens, those sorts of rooms that need that soft, white light. Warm white is between yellow and white on the range. These ranges you will see on the packaging for the LEDs. So the warm white has between 3000-4000 Kelvin and these are going to be a little bit brighter. Warm white is perfect for your kitchen, your workspace, your bathrooms. Then between the white and the blue ranges 4000-5000 Kelvins, these bulbs are great for kitchens and bathrooms. They have a brighter blue or white. And then we have daylight, which is in the blue range, and that's 5000-6500 kelvins. And these bulbs are what you want for reading or, you know, more task lighting. They're bright, but they are still okay on the eyes. So that's how you're going to want to pick your light bulbs, by Kelvins.
Now, as promised, I want to get into the environmental impact of these LED light bulbs, and CFLs as well. So let's talk about disposal first. And this includes batteries too. Do not throw away your batteries, or your LED or CFL light bulbs in the trash! You need to find a recycling center for them. They contain mercury and phosphor and have chemicals that are toxic to humans and animals. When the light bulbs are thrown out, they end up in landfills and these substances leach into our groundwater and end up contaminating our drinking water. Even though each bulb only contains a small amount of these chemicals, they build up over time and become more dangerous as they build up.
You may have heard that LED light bulbs are more eco-friendly because they use less energy. However, they may not be as green as you think. This is something I learned in my research. LEDs emit blue light radiation and we know that that impacts both human and animal health. Blue light suppresses melatonin, it hinders sleep for both us humans and also for animals. If you wear blue light glasses, the idea is to protect yourself from the loss of melatonin that comes from this blue light radiation. What's crazy is that for animals it can actually hinder their natural behaviors, those natural behaviors that they need to sustain life. Exterior LEDs, like your Christmas lights or maybe the light by your front door, those exterior LEDs, really impact light pollution that impacts wildlife. It disturbs life sustaining behaviors like reproduction, nourishment, sleep, and protection from predators. Recent studies have shown that light pollution negatively impacts bats, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and even plants. Crazy, right? So an example of this light pollution, and how it impacts the migratory flight paths of birds, it can confuse their light trajectories. And for sea turtles, this is so sad, LED lights confuse them and draw them in the wrong direction.
So here's the question, should you stop using LEDs? And here's where we all have our impact. I can tell you that in my research, I found that some European countries are talking about stopping using LEDs in external public settings, streetlights and those sorts of things because of the light pollution that they cause.
But for us personally, should you stop using LEDs? You might want to consider traditional light bulbs, for your exterior lights so that you're not impacting light pollution, and also to help reduce your personal impact on wildlife. You also should know that any LEDs that are in your home are adding to your blue light radiation exposure. So you especially might want to swap out the light by your bed. Because again, you just don't want it to impact your melatonin as you're going to bed. So if you read with a light bulb at your bedside and you're reading a traditional book, you might want to swap that out for a good old fashioned incandescent bulb so you're not getting that blue light radiation right before bedtime.
You might have also noticed that a lot of these newer light fixtures are LED integrated. And yeah, they do last a really long time. So these are light fixtures, not just the bulb, the entire light fixture you install. It's an LED light that is integrated within the light fixture. Now, yes, LEDs last a long time, like I said, but at the same time, what if you buy one of these LED integrated light fixtures, and it's faulty? If you send it back to the company, they're just going to send you another one. Likely they're just going to trash that LED light fixture. It's incredibly wasteful that the entire light fixture has to be trashed once the LED light no longer works. So if you are thinking about adding new fixtures in your home, really consider if you want an LED integrated light, because once it stops working, you have to take out the entire fixture and replace it, not just the light bulb.
That's everything you need to know about light bulbs, their environmental impact, how to dispose of them, and how to pick them out at the store when you're shopping. As always, I'm here if you want to DM me on Instagram @themeganmikkelsen or email me at megan@detox.design. I'm happy to answer your questions.
