In some regions of the United States, LED adoption has achieved a saturation of more than 50% of the installed lighting stock. Eight states have adopted regulations banning the sale of mercury-containing compact and linear fluorescent lamps. Like other traditional light sources that relied on incandescence or gaseous discharge, fluorescent is a dying
technology—yet another casualty of the solid-state lighting revolution.

A concern about LED’s dominance is what happens at end of life, an issue gaining in relevance as the first-generation LED systems age in place and are ripe for replacement or upgrade. This is really three issues: how owners know when their lighting has reached the end of its useful life, what they are actually replacing and what happens after it’s uninstalled.

How do you know it’s time?

In the early days of LED, the technology was considered install-and-forget, and while LED systems exhibit few spot failures and have superior lifespans, at some point they will need to be replaced. With LED, service life is an estimated average based on optimal operating conditions. 

What will be replaced?

LED lighting systems are dissimilar to fluorescents because the light source often outlasts the power supply. As a result, these systems may fail due to one of three mortality modes. The driver may fail, causing the LEDs to stop producing light. Lumen depreciation may reach a point where light levels drop below the target design minimum for productivity and safety. And phosphor degradation may result in a color shift.

Failing drivers can be addressed through maintenance. Color shift may be acceptable to the owner unless the application prioritizes quality. 

Light level is the most problematic, as the owner may consider the lighting system to be useful if it’s producing light, even if light level has declined to a point that is not optimal.

Electrical contractors can be good partners to customers in this regard, educating customers about the differences between LEDs and what they were previously using. In some cases, they can support customers as lighting stewards: visually inspecting the system, replacing defective components and periodically checking light levels.

Early-generation luminaires, however, were typically highly integrated devices lacking replaceable components. Today, many luminaires remain integrated, allowing the driver to be replaced, but not the light source. The argument is this optimizes performance and promotes innovation, though it lacks standardization, and with it, ease of maintenance and a degree of sustainability. 

Upon light source failure, often, the entire luminaire must be disposed of. In 2022, the National Association of Innovative Lighting Distributors’ Sustainable Lighting Committee published an open letter calling on the lighting industry to recommit to standardization of form factors and socketing, citing unnecessary removal and waste.

“The LED module needs to be removable so it can be replaced or recycled,” said Jeffrey Schwartz, owner and principal of JDS1 Consulting, and a former EPA Energy Star consultant who addressed end-of-life disposal issues in a presentation at the 2023 LightFair event. “Standardization will help. There are U.S. cities looking to replace tens of thousands of first-generation streetlights. The competitive bidding process would be better if there wasn’t a need to replace the entire luminaire. Things like size could be standardized while still allowing for competition in wattage and LED configuration.”

End-of-life concerns

For Schwartz, this is primarily a sustainability issue, which is a concern for after an LED is uninstalled. Traditional lamps contain harmful substances such as mercury—the reason fluorescent lamps are being banned in some states—but LED products contain numerous chemicals, and their long-term effect is not fully understood.

He proposed several solutions. First is to ramp up efforts to incorporate materials such as cork, recycled aluminum and bioplastics into luminaires, an effort that is becoming more mainstream. Another is a material passport for LED luminaires, which is a measure prospering in Europe. This is a QR code that provides all information about the product, from cradle to grave. 

Finally, while some companies offer LED recycling, he believes there should be a national nonprofit dedicated to it, along with a push for education on how and where to recycle. Schwartz’s model is Recolight, a European organization that provides free lamp collection and recycling with luminaire, battery and electrical item recycling.

“The time to do something is now, not 20 years from now when it may be too late,” Schwartz said. “With hundreds of millions of LED lamps and luminaires in operation now and in the future, we need to keep them out of our landfills.”

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