Yes, but if this happens by increasing the risk of serious contamination of the environment? I think that we should not just ignore this.
The same thing happened with the CFL bulbs that contain mercury - how many of them were disposed correctly? Luckily for us these will be replaced by LED bulbs very soon.
... as compared to the known, ongoing and serious contamination of the environment due to coal plants, of course.
Do you have a citation for the CFL concern? I'm not expert in this area, but my quick checking only reveals this [1]:
> Even if the mercury contained in a CFL was directly
> released into the atmosphere, an incandescent would
> still contribute 4.65 more milligrams of mercury into
> the environment over its lifetime.
Basically the same info from the EPA as well, here [2].
I don't know why you're being downvoted, we should consider potential side effects in using a material, even if just so we can minimise potential downsides.
In his specific examples, it's grid-scale and cars, and neither of those are really disposed of the same way lightbulbs are (especially for grid-scale you can really crank up the regulation)
