The Evil Eyebrow

Wal-Mart is Not Evil?

Written by

Bill Ruhsam

in

,

I’ve never jumped on the “Wal-Mart is Evil!” bandwagon. I agree that Wal-Mart pursues some disappointing business practices, but they are hardly the first, or only, large company to do so. They get more crap because they are so close to the consumer.

But! Wal-Mart is pushing an eco-friendly way to light our communities! They want to sell 100 million compact fluorescent lightbulbs by mid 2007. I applaud this move. Even if their motives are horribly self-serving by trying to ride the green wave, it will still save millions of kilowatt hours of electricity and reduce greenhouse emissions during production. Go Wal-Mart!

If you don’t have any of these in the house, I strongly recommend that you put some in. They don’t do well in bedrooms or bathrooms or places where you need instant light—they take a minute or two to warm up to full potency. But for garages, and basements, and outdoor applications where they are on all the time, you can’t beat them.

Comments

5 responses to “Wal-Mart is Not Evil?”

  1. James Cronen Avatar
    James Cronen

    We just replaced the compact fluorescent bulb in our back hallway that died. I was disappointed at its lifespan until I realized that we put it in soon after we moved in. And that was two and a half years ago. And because it’s our back hallway and “public” space within the house, it’s on most nights, all night.

    So yeah, compact fluorescents are completely worth the added cost.

  2. psychowoof Avatar
    psychowoof

    We’ve replaced most of the bulbs in our house with compact fluorescents. The only place that we particularly notice the warm up time is the outside light by the kitchen door. If we are just turning it on when it’s cold outside, it takes it a while to reach full brightness.

  3. jon harmon Avatar
    jon harmon

    Wal-Mart indeed gets an awful lot of flack but only a company its size could set about to sell 100 million of these wacky bulbs in 2007 — that would be a 50% sales increase for the entire industry! If Wal-Mart continues to through its considerable weight around for green causes, we will all be better off. For more (from a PR person who is trying not to be evil) – http://jon8332.typepad.com/force_for_good/2007/01/walmart_grows_u.html

  4. jon harmon Avatar
    jon harmon

    oops — very stupid typo in my last comment — can you please change “through” to “throw” so I don’t look as stupid as I feel right now!

  5. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    The interesting story is why Walmart got into cfls in the first place. One of the store managers (now promoted to eco-czar) figured out that Walmart could save something like $30 million a year by replacing the lightbulbs in their ceiling fan displays with cf’s. Now there’s a lightbulb going over someone’s head.

    I use cfls in the stairwell of my house. I used to replace those frackin lights every 2 months. It’s now 6 months after I installed them and I haven’t had to touch one yet. I don’t really like the light, so I wouldn’t use them anyplace where they’d be on all the time, but they’re very good for their current use.

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