Unban MV ballasts and fixtures

You got to rework it if you want anyone from outside LG to agree with the ideas :

Provide description of why Mercury is good :

- Decent efficacy, while not as high as today's most advanced tecnologies (MH ofcourse), the Mercury's lamp efficacy cannot be dismissed

- Excellent and proven reliability, lamp life, ruggedness, easy-on-the-eyes light, low glare

- Due to its good and easy on the eyes light, less light is needed to see things clearly when Mercury lamp is used, therefore minimizing light trespass in residential areas, and minimizing sky glow

- Low cost compared to any other light source which achieves similar performance, therefore allowing farm and home users to afford professional grade lighting, without being limited to only usual homeowner-grade stuff

Provide sensible data. If a Westy lamp lasted for 40 years and still starts today, all you can say is "have been known to last as long as 40 years in some instances !". NOT that they last 40 years because :

- You dont know how many of Westies from the same batch never made it to 40 years (this may be 1 in a 1000)

- The light output of a Mercury lamp is out of spec after 10 years for an excellent lamp (same Westy) or 4 years for a modern lamp (and lets not mention 1 year for some crap present on the market today)

- The lamps present on the market today are not Westies and are not going to last 40 years

Provide description of the applications where power usage is not the main concern. Hint : Privately owned lighting, such as farm lighting, barn lighting, and yardblasters. Where the home owner pays the bill, so have the right to decide what lamp to use. Utility companies are expected to do their choices, and while they choose HPS or LED, your petition IS NOT ABOUT THAT but about availability of the luminaires to the normal user

Are you against HPS ? Why not HPS ? Why not MH ? Why not LED ? Your petition is not about how bad are the other light sources, but about how good is Mercury. It have the right to exist because of what it achieves, not because everything else is bad

While i would sign a petition to ban piercing baby's ears or modifying their other parts, it does not belong in a petition to unban Mercury lighting

Generally, drop that standpoint of "something must be banned but it is not Mercury lighting". Your point is that Mercury lighting should not be banned. Thats it

It does not matter that one lamp (out of 1000 ?) survived a drop on concrete. The main point is : Mercury lamp contains about as much Mercury as 5 CFLs (out of the top of my mind, ~3mg CFL / ~15mg small Mercury lamp, allthough those are figures for European lamps), and provides more light than 5 CFLs. Therefore the quantity of Mercury in it is very modest compared to the quantity of light it puts out (less Mercury than using 5 CFLs for the same task)

IN ADDITION, the lamp is way less fragile (double glass vs. thin spiral tube), the lamp lasts longer (and therefore less times thrown out, also less fiddling with lamps = less chance to smash one)

The name of the Mercury lamp is Mercury lamp to tell it apart from Sodium lamp or Metal Halide lamps using other metals (and this can be used as the description for what a Mercury lamp is, skipping altogether the "dont be scared by the name" part)

And keep it (the petition) as much non personal as possible

As a home/farm owner i would want :

- A light source that put out good light and lasts long

- A light source that is not easily damaged by some bad weather or surges from the power grid i have over there in the rural areas

- A sturdy luminaire made with simple components and out of metal, not a modern plastic toy, yet at a price i can afford

- Mercury lamo, which had been the workhorse of professional lighting for many decades, provides this all, while newer technologies are available now, they are very expensive, and the Mercury lamp is still the closest thing providing close enough performance in some things and match or surpass them in other things