Incandescent rage as lights go out on old 100W bulbs

From Tuesday the 100-watt incandescent lightbulb will join tape cassettes and typewriters as defunct consumer items, making way for more environmentally friendly compact fluorescent lamps, as mandated by the EU.

From a green point of view, the phasing out of the 100W bulb, which has been around for more than 100 years, is a no-brainer. Energy-saving bulbs use 80% less electricity than standard ones, therefore cutting bills – by around £45 a year – and reducing carbon emissions. The Energy Saving Trust says the vast majority of the 600m lightbulbs in UK homes are inefficient tungsten filament bulbs, and phasing them out will make a real difference to national energy consumption.

Yet the passing of the standard lightbulb has seen an outpouring of pre-emptive nostalgia, as well as considerable vitriol at its replacement. There is a Facebook page called I Hate Energy Saving Light Bulbs, where Margot K Juby curses the new bulbs: "I got a cactus spike in my foot late one night & had to use a torch to see it! Stupid lightbulb was useless."

Rachel Cooke, of the Observer, confessed to spending £30 – the entire contents of her wallet – on incandescent lightbulbs that were on special offer. The Daily Mail, which considers directives from Brussels the work of the devil, mounted a campaign to keep the old-fashioned bulbs, to the point of giving them away by the thousand. The paper even managed to work up a scare story about how the new bulbs "can give you skin cancer". That claim may be overwrought but some charities have genuine concerns about people with light-sensitive health conditions such as an extreme form of lupus, for whom exposure to the new lightbulbs can lead to a reddish-purple rash and vomiting.

Health concerns aside, the intense feelings generated by the imminent extinction of the 100W lightbulb are a stark illustration of the uphill battle facing those who hope to wean consumers away from planet-spoiling behaviour. If so many people are so attached to something as trivial as lightbulbs, what hope is there of cutting the use of cars and planes?