We managed to attend ten trade shows this year, and found that it was a great place to gauge general levels of lighting knowledge amongst our customers. We were impressed by the huge increase in what most folks knew about LED, but understandably there were a few instances where we had to fill in the gaps.

With this in mind, we’ve put together three common lighting myths to dispel.

Myth #1: Watts = brightness

One common misconception of lighting is that a bulb’s wattage is equal to its level of brightness. This used to be more of the case for inefficient lighting technologies like incandescents. For these types of lights, the hotter the filament gets, the more light it produces. This old technology is not very effective at converting power to light and wastes a lot of energy.

A watt actually has nothing to do with light output, and instead represents one unit of electrical power. We measure electrical usage in watts and pay for our electricity according to the number of watts we use. When you go to the store and look at a 50W bulb vs. a 75W one, the latter won’t necessarily be brighter—it just uses more power.

A light source’s brightness is actually measured in lumens. For more information, head over to our Lighting Guide.

Myth #2: A light is a disposable product

This certainly used to be the case, with older lighting technologies only being able to offer about 1,000 to 2,000 hours of household use. LED provides a fantastic opportunity for lighting companies to design products that take full advantage of the benefits this new technology provides. This means that lights can be made to last upwards of 70,000 hours—or, in other words, can be installed and forgotten about until they expire in 30 year’s time.

Myth #3: Lights can’t be recycled

Correction: some (but not all) lights can be recycled. Take into consideration if the light you’ve chosen to buy contains heavy metals. If that’s the case, you may have to drop them off at certain specialty recycle centres; click here for more info on the one nearest to you. Alternatively some LEDs are completely free of toxins and can be disassembled by hand, making them extremely easy to recycle.

Did you know that we’ll give you two bucks for each of your expired Brightgreen lights, in order to make sure that they’re properly recycled?

[Pic via]