(The following story by Steve Ritea appeared on the Newsday website on April 16.)
NEW YORK — The Long Island Rail Road has agreed to pay a $43,875 fine for not recycling about 260,000 fluorescent bulbs between 2003 and 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday.
“EPA inspected the Hillside Maintenance Facility in Hollis … last year and based on that inspection and other information received from LIRR, found violations in disposing of fluorescent light bulbs as regular garbage at three facilities,” the EPA said in a news release.
Two other LIRR work areas were also cited, the Sheridan Shop in Richmond Hill and the West Side Storage Yard near Penn Station in Manhattan, the agency said.
Fluorescent bulbs contain mercury and can be harmful to people and the environment if they are thrown away and not recycled, according to the EPA.
The LIRR estimates that they used nearly 260,000 spent fluorescent bulbs for about two years before July 2005, when they began complying with EPA rules.
Recycling can capture up to 99 percent of the mercury in the bulbs for reuse in new bulbs, the EPA said.