How Much Mercury Would You Like Today?

So what do light bulbs and tuna have in common? Mercury. I really did not want to believe when I was informed that most "top of the food chain" seafoods are loaded with critical amounts of mercury in their system. So much so that grocery stores all over post signs warning pregnant women and children of the effects of eating too much seafood. Thats a big deal! It took personal research to prove to myself that it wasn't a myth at all. The higher on the food chain the fish is, the higher the concentration generally is. The FDA has published quite a few reports on the subject, and so have many independant researchers. One I found very enlightening is on Oceanas website.
Mercury is a well known neurotoxin and causes some serious physical damage to the human body. Yet, we can't seem to get away from it. Most recently after being enlightened with reports of how much mercury we find in fish, I learned that the eco-friendly, green, sustainable, whatcha-ma-call-um, CLF lightbulbs, also contain mercury gas in significant levels. Immediately the question raised is "why are we marketing them as eco-friendly and green then?". I figured this was just another case of Greenwashing. There is an interesting twist to this story though. The average CLF is supposed to last 5 years, after which it can possibly be recycled, and it will use about 75% less energy than a normal light bulb. Most likely it will break during it's disposal, and release its mercury gasses into the atmosphere doing damage and reversing the good done by purchasing the bulb in the first place. Yet, even if this happens, the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere will probably (if all goes according to plan) be less than what a typical coal powered electrical plant would produce while powering a standard lightbulb for the same period of time. To me it is a case of the lesser of the two evils still, but the evil is slowly being reduced.