I opened a storage cabinet in my garage recently and realized I had a dilemma.

Now that I have swapped just about all of the incandescent light bulbs in my home for compact flourescents, I now have a box full of slightly used but still functional Thomas Edison-type 60 and 100 Watt bulbs. The question is what should I do with these?

• If I throw them out, I’m taking something that’s useful and putting it in a landfill unnecessarily too soon.
• If I give them to someone else, I’m adding to the problem of too many incandescents using too much energy and global warming.
• If I donate them (e.g., to Goodwill), I’m perhaps helping someone who couldn’t afford a CF. Yet if $ is tight, wouldn’t it be better to get them CFs to start with that last longer and don’t contribute to our global warming crisis?

None of these look like great solutions. So there they sit, a box full of working light bulbs. Potentially useful, potentially harmful. But not bothering anyone as they gather dust on the shelf…