Send them to me. Lots of people still use them. You could sell them on eBay.

Incandescents can be put in the regular garbage. CFLs have a small amount of dangerous mercury inside and need to be handled properly. Most stores that sell CFLs will take them back for proper disposal, so too your area's city/county waste disposal site should have a hazardous waste processing location to handle them. Or, maybe you can donate them to a local charity. Just be careful not to break any.

Susie have you tried the LED bulbs? We can't stand the CFL bulbs but like the LED's!

You should dare to say whatever you want!

Home Depot and Lowe's have recycling bins at the front of the stores.

I use them until they die.

We gave our old working bulbs away on Freecycle.

Shame to dump perfectly good ,safe, source of light. Give them or sell them to someone who will use them.

I would set them besides my drive way, if I wanted to "give them away". But I still use them here and there... and when they die, they will get tossed. I have a multitude of light bulbs of all configurations.

Moni

We finally used up most of the CFL bulbs, we still have the outside lights but are moving to LED bulbs. The lighting is so much mellower than compact florescent bulbs. I am saving my incandescent bulbs for heating the cold frame when we get arctic blasts, but I am down to 40 and 50 watt bulbs with my last 100 watt in use.

If you live in an area where your pipes freeze putting a incandescent bulb near the area that normally freezes can slow or prevent the pipe from freezing. You do have to be careful not to place the fixture where it could rest on the wall or any thing that might be flammable. I used to use one of those mechanics hanging lights at our old house. The plastic ones do not reflect as much heat but the shell part does not become as hot as the older metal ones. Sometimes even a lamp left in the area is enough.

pk, you can still find incandescent bulbs of 60 watts and more and will be able to for a long time. Only the ones deemed in the "general purpose" use category were banned at higher wattage levels. You can find incandescent bulbs of at least two flavors I know of:

1) "Specialty" bulbs for which the higher wattage manufacturing ban doesn't apply at all. In this category you can easily find "rugged" packages in the standard A shape with a medium base and also globe shaped incandescent bulbs at 60 or 100 or even 150 watts with a medium base. The globe shape is called G40. I use this over a breakfast table in a hanging fixture with a clear bulb.

2) There is a queer animal - a halogen bulb built inside what would otherwise be the shape of an incandescent bulb. I have several in use that are 100 watt equivalent and they're easy to find. They're considered "lower consumption" because it takes a 72 watt halogen bulb to put out 100 watt equivalent of light. They're called A shape halogen. The ones I have are made by Philips, have clear glass and they get plenty hot.

I didn’t know CFL’s can’t go in the trash. Ooops! I also haven’t seen the recycling bin at Home Depot or Lowe’s because I’m usually not paying attention when I walk in, but that’s good to know.

LOL. Same thing at my driveway curb. If I don’t want anything and set it outside, it will be gone by days end.

All my CFL’s are used but still work. I’ve received 6 free LED’s from my power company along with 2 LED nightlights. Very nice surprise.

LED savings calculator

I bought a bunch of retro bulbs a couple of years ago. They are duplicates of those bulbs where you can see the light inside the bulb and there is a little bump or "tit" on the top. When I get to a computer I will send a link. Not energy efficient. I know. But they look and shine in a way that matches my what one person here in particular claims is my cluttered home. Lol.

Picture of the retro filament bulb:

Just being curious. Two questions Those of you that use LED's do you dim them and before you installed them did you use a dimmer? Someone above did mention dimming.

I know replacing the switches is not that expensive but was advised at one of our local hardware store that some of the older light fixtures are not suitable for LEDs. Have you replaced fixtures to accommodate the LEDs such as stand alone lamps?

maifleur, I think what you say is very true, that sometimes newer dimmers expressly suitable for LEDs need to be installed. I think the same may also be true for some timers and some motion or light sensing switches.

None of my LEDs are on dimming circuits so I don't have any personal experience. For me, it's been LEDs for outdoor fixtures, hall lights and ceiling lights in rooms and bathrooms. An added benefit of LEDs is that for the hard to reach or high up fixtures, the long bulb life insures that replacement will be less frequent and instead will be many many, many years away.

Only LED I had installed last year in an outside light immediately died when I turned it on and it was -7 so used one of my last incandescent bulbs. there should be bulbs better suited to extreme conditions available.

You had a defective bulb, it likely would have done the same thing indoors. What I find by searches suggests LEDs do fine in cold weather. Buy a quality name brand one rather than a cheap one, it does make a difference

I never did get into the CFL, but do like the LED. The first one we bought was a very harsh light, so we learned to make sure we buy the right part of the color spectrum. I also had one LED that died after a couple months of usage. That didn't sit well, but so far the several others we've used are doing great.

We donated a bunch of light bulbs we no longer used to a local thrift store- you could always call and ask if working light bulbs are something they will take. For some reason we had a bunch of 100w incandescent and those weird little tubular halogens that went in the old torch lamps-- neither things we had an application for anymore.

I have 5 Cree 4 Flow LED bulbs on the exterior porch and garage side lights. They were installed in 2014 and still lighting. They've lasted through -14 F winters.

I've never been too fond of the twisty CFL bulbs. You turn them on and they slowly come up to full brightness over the course of several minutes. Oftentimes I'd find the need for the light had passed long before the light was fully on, especially for an outdoor CFL flood lamp. I have been buying and installing LED bulbs, in the past year or two. I fully expect that their claim of up to 50000 hours will in practice likely be much much less. We'll see.

I did find that installing two new LED bulbs on a circuit that also had a CFL bulb caused the LED bulbs to flicker quite noticeably and quite annoyingly.

Our only dimmer is in the dining room and we still use the decorative 'flame shape' incandescent bulbs in the chandelier.

I like LED for my bright desk lamp, much cooler if I need to redirect the metal shade.