Okay, so there is mercury in CFL's -but how much?

Mercury in Compact Flourescent Ligtbulbs...but not much. 

 CFL's contain a very small amount of mercury in the tubing which is about 5 milligrams. This is reported to cover the tip of a ball point pen. A regular thermometer contains about 500 milligrams which means it would take about 100 broken CFL light bulbs to equal the older thermometer.

Try this on for size!

Also, If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light over 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in yearly energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of over 800,000 cars.