News article after news article have posed the same question: How & where to recycle CFLs? There are very few sustainable recycling solutions out there for consumers and businesses. The EPA has released guidelines of what to do when a CFL breaks and does offer a few resources for recycling. Most of these are local town hazardous waste days. The number of CFLs in use are on the rise and as a result the issue of recycling is becoming paramount. What good is it to "go green" and change to energy saving CFLs if they are just going to be thrown out into our landfills at end of life?

NLR was one of the first lamp recyclers in the nation to create a national lamp recycling mail-back program called XpressPak. This program has offered businesses the opportunity to recycle used fluorescent lamps throughout the US for over 6 years. NLR has taken that methodology and applied it to the problem of CFL recycling. The result: the Com-Pak CFL Recycling Center.

COM-PAK is the nation's first completely self-contained self-service recycling center specifically designed to meet the growing need for CFL recycling. The program, much like the XpressPak, has been designed for ease of implementation, use and high recycling capacity.

Com-Pak has been uniquely designed to hold 2 environmentally safe CFL containers that can recycle a total of 180 CFLs. The containers include a vapor lock lid and innerpak liner to guard against any environmental breach. This allows for a full container to be sent back to NLR and immediately replaced with an empty one. The display itself is designed with a standard size brochure holder so that organizations can place information material directly at the center for users.

The program includes 1 CFL recycling center w/ literature holder, (2) CFL recycling containers, (2) innerpak liners, instructions & FedEx return labels.

Since FedEx is the exclusive shipping partner for NLR, the program is available nationwide (except Hawaii & Puerto Rico).

Com-Pak is ideal for offering free CFL recycling to employees, customers, students, residents and more.

The location manager assembles the center and places one of the FedEx pre-paid labels on one of the containers. They mark the Accumulation Start Date (date that waste is put into the container) on the container and it is ready to receive waste.

Users simply walk up to the center, lift the lid, place their used CFLs inside the recycling container and then close the lid. Easy! Once the recycling container is filled the location manager closes the innerPak liner and seals the container with the lid. They contact 1.800.GO.FEDEX to schedule the pick-up of the full container that will be delivered back to NLR for recycling. Click here for a online demo.

NLR is Connecticut's only DEP permitted lamp recycler for over 14 years. Since NLR is a direct recycler all CFL waste is recycled directly at our facility within 24hrs. After recycling NLR will issue a Certificate of Green Recycling to the organization.

Organizations have the ability to have a replacement recycling container automatically shipped back to them without ever having to call. Automatically replaced container are only $59.99 compared to $70-$129 that other companies charge for only 1 similar container. If a replacement container is not needed, a pre-paid return shipping label will be sent for the return of the center.