Remember how I couldn’t find a CFL bulb that fit my new IKEA lamp, but I got lotsa great advice from you lovely readers, and found one at Oke Electric Supply for a mere $6.95?
The story ends not there. I ordered the bulb — which arrived a month later; apparantly the bulb was out of stock at the time, though nothing informed me of this until I called the company 3 weeks into the wait. Whatev. So the bulb arrived, and I screwed it into the lamp — and it didn’t work.
However, the lightbulb came with a freebie I wasn’t expecting — cuz nothing informed me of this on the website either: A screwdriver with changeable heads!
Luckily I needed to go to IKEA again, and really, really picked through the lightbulb section this time, though I thought I’d searched pretty hard last time. I found one, sort of miraculously cuz it was in the wrong container with some bigger lightbulbs. I’m guessing IKEA doesn’t get a lot of them, so they sometimes run out….
Then I came home, put in the new lightbulb which works perfectly, and assembled the IKEA dresser I bought with the freebie screwdriver, which works awesomely.
Then I went to the post office to mail back the defective lightbulb…. If Oke Electric Supply doesn’t reimburse me for, I’ve still got my money’s worth via the sturdy screwdriver –
in related news, Aust gov’t announced today totally phasing out all conventional light bulbs within 3 years, leaving only energy efficient, low emission, longer lasting bulbs for sale every where.
go choice editing.
would be better to do it in a year, but i haven’t done the research on supply to know if there would be enough of the greener option bulbs to meet demand if you phased out conventional in a year.
Comment by Cam — February 19, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
I read this in the LA Times today! 3 years seems fairly reasonable to me, though of course I don’t know what the situation is in Australia. California’s considering a similar bill, which was met with consternation by some greenlagirl readers –
Comment by Siel — February 20, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
Hi Siel, how r u? I have a question regarding IKEA, do you think it’s a green company? I heard and read an article on “Le Monde” about how much they put so much money to do good positive publicity in order to cover up all their non-green practices…(a la Starbucks…at least). I have to find the link to that, but I read the paper about it more than a month ago…let me search more the exact article but it’s in french.
Take care,
Comment by Maya — February 21, 2007 @ 9:32 am
there you go siel..
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/recherche?s=IKEA
hope you can translate or someone else can for you…i won’t be the best translator for the moment ;-)
ciao,
Comment by Maya — February 22, 2007 @ 7:45 am
Ha! This reminds me of an story I wrote earlier this month (found here: http://www.greenoptions.com/node/2238) about the difficulties faced when transitioning to CFLs. Unlike you, I’ve still found no bulbs to fit half the fixtures in my home. Very frustrating!
Also – remember, you’re not supposed to turn them off! Shortens the lifespan! Ugh.
Comment by Tod Brilliant — February 23, 2007 @ 11:05 am
Hey Maya! To understand US people’s relationship to IKEA, you gotta see it in comparison to our other options, which are pretty horrid. So yes, IKEA prolly does some greenwashing and is far from perfect — which is why we should try and get our stuff either second hand or from green companies. But when those options fail, due to either lack of choices or to super steep prices, we sometimes have to resort to IKEA.
BTW — IKEA’s the first retailer to charge money for disposable plastic bags in the US!!
Tod — What do you mean about not turning lightbulbs off?
Comment by Siel — February 23, 2007 @ 7:42 pm