I wanted to buy a new lighting fixture for our living room recently. And because I like to think I am relatively eco-friendly, it was quickly decided that the new fixture would use LEDs. After all, no other technology produces so much light for so little energy, right? Besides, the classical old-style light bulbs are already forbidden in Europe, and halogen will be gone the same way soon.
After looking around in a few shops, we decided to buy a certain fixture with a non-removable LED built in. And today the postman delivered our package to our doorstep. Yeay!
Then I started reading a bit... life expectancy is rated at 25.000 hours. Well, OK, assuming an average of 4 hours a day that makes 18 years. Good enough, there is a fair chance we will want to redecorate sooner than that. Fine.
Next line. 10000 on/off cycles. WTF? So if you carefully turn off the light when you leave the room, you end up very quickly at some 5 on/off cycles a day. Or even more. 5 a day - that means 1825 per year - that means in just 5 years my brand new fixture will be ready for the recycle bin?? Really??
I don't know which part would fail after those listed 10.000 cycles. Is it the LED itself? In that case fixtures with replaceable LED bulbs would be a solution. Or is it one of the electronic components inside the fixture?
Mind you, I'm not saying that the fixture I choose has a bad design. It is also not a cheapo no-name Chinese product, it is manufactured in Germany (though I don't know if the same applies for all components, of course). Most LED fixtures even don't mention the number of on/off cycles. The very fact that this manufacturer tested and publicized this may well be a sign of quality.
But if it is - then this problem is at least as bad with all other LEDs out there. I'm not an expert in craddle-to-grave footprint calculations, but I do know that for cars and most household appliances the ecological footprint of production and recycling is MUCH bigger than whatever energy that appliance consumes in its lifetime. In that case, LED may well be much less eco-friendly as I thought.
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