Never mind “turn out the lights” – the latest eco-move in Toronto schools is to not “throw out the lights” once they’re done.

In a bid to keep mercury out of landfill sites, the Toronto District School Board will start recycling burned-out fluorescent lights instead of trashing them.

For the next six months, when a fluorescent tube burns out at any of the board’s 560 schools, caretakers will put them aside to be taken to Fluorescent Lamp Recyclers near Kitchener, which will recycle the bulbs, including the mercury, glass, metal ends and the phosphor powder that lines the inside.

Via TheStar.com.

Apparently, about 30 million fluorescent lights are sold in Ontario every year and 90% of them end up in the landfill. That’s 1 tonne of mercury!