Is it five years from now when the first big wave of long-lasting CFL bulbs will hit American garbage cans?

I understand that it's more mercury in the air today to generate electricity for incandescents than is used in the CFL bulbs today.

But our children or grandchildren will curse us and pay billions to clean-up the groundwater polluted by the mercury that millions of CFLs in landfills across the land will create.

Where I live people drink water from wells -- individual and municipal -- and we still use landfills.

Our area has a system for recycling plastics, papers, leaves and Christmas trees, but the town and county authorities are stumped when I call to ask how to dispose of my first malfunctioning CFL bulb. Doubtless my neighbors are just chucking them without thinking about it.