Ikea phasing out incandescent bulbs

IKEA incandescent bulb phaseout leads U.S. and Canada, replacing incandescents with low-energy CFL, LED, and halogen lamps, boosting energy efficiency, aligning with federal legislation, offering recycling for mercury lamps, and cutting carbon emissions.

Swedish home furnishings purveyor Ikea is turning out the lights at its North American stores next month when it plans to start replacing its stock of incandescent light bulbs in favor of longer-lasting and energy-efficient ones.

The company said that it hopes to have all incandescent bulbs out of its U.S. and Canadian stores by January 1, and only sell other, longer lasting bulbs. Thats ahead of federal legislation that calls for a phaseout beginning in 2012, similar to the EU phaseout announced for that year.

"As we sell out the incandescents that we have in stock, we will restock with low energy" bulbs, said Mona Astra Liss, a spokeswoman for Ikeas U.S. corporate headquarters in Conshohocken, Pa.

Ikea said customers will have more efficient options including compact fluorescent bulbs, LED and halogen lamps. Liss declined to say what percentage of the company's lighting stock was now made up of low-energy bulbs, or provide sales figures.

"We have a full range of LED and halogens," Liss said. "We will be developing that range even further."

Compact fluorescent, or CFL, bulbs use up to 80 percent less energy and last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs, a point central to the ban-the-bulb debate among policymakers.

Ikea has more than 300 stores in 37 countries, including 37 in the U.S.

The pullout applies to the 48 stores in Canada and the United States. Ikea stores in France and Australia have already started phasing out the incandescent bulbs.

At Ikea's store in South Philadelphia, there are two big piles of light bulbs: A yellow sign marks the display of old-style bulbs that will soon be shrinking, and a green sign denotes the CFL bulbs. Boxes of the energy-saving bulbs were running from $3.99 to $8.99, compared to $1.49 to $3.99 for packs of incandescent bulbs.

Allison Roethke, 22, a senior marketing major at Drexel university, was sifting through the pile of energy-saving bulbs, hoping to find bulbs that would last until she graduated.

"I know they will cost a little more initially," she said. "But I know they will last us our entire college career."

Since 2001, Ikea also has offered ways to recycle the CFL bulbs, which contain mercury risks and require proper recycling.

The company's voluntary phaseout is one of its environmental initiatives aimed at increasing energy efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, IKEA Canada reductions being one example, Liss said.

In October 2008, the company eliminated all disposable plastic bags at the checkouts of its North American stores.

Ikea customer Olivia Montejo praised the company for voluntarily making the light-bulb change now, rather than waiting until it had to amid government delays on phaseout policies.

"Just do it, do it now," said Montejo, 31, of Wilmington, Del. "It's about time we cared about the planet."

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