I love Becky and the gang, but they really blew it with regard to the interview with the mom who broke a compact fluorescent bulb in her daughter’s bedroom.

As we’ve been discussing since Sunday, when we spent an hour on this topic on my radio show, breaking a compact fluorescent bulb CAN cause big problems. One of the callers to the show said he had to pull up the rug and replace it, which wiped out any savings he could expect to see by changing from incandescent to CFBs.

Meanwhile, CNBC had a GREAT opportunity to have some folks from the CDC, the EPA, OSHA, or even a CFB manufacturer and an energy specialist to really round out the discussion. If everyone in America knows that the amount of powdered mercury the size of a pentip can cause 6 times the legal limit of hazardous materials in a bedroom, it will seriously dent US efforts to get people to switch over to these bulbs.

Manufacturers are going to have to learn how to make CFBs without mercury so this hazard disappears.

Because that’s just what you don’t want — another attractive mom sitting in a pink little girl’s room talking about how her daughter has to sleep on the couch and can’t go in her bedroom because there’s a tarp covering up the toxic waste that will cost her thousands of dollars to fix.

May 10, 2007.