I think that this is something that hasn't yet been thought through.

How is the government going to dispose of the mercury? Each CF bulb contain a minute amount, and you can't just toss them into a landfill (a/k/a dump or tip). After they extract the mercury, how do they plan to dispose of THAT? You can't just dump it into the ocean.

We use CF bulbs here at home, and take them to the hazmat disposal site when they burn out.

Regular tubular fluorscent bulbs, by the way, do not contain mercury. At least the newer ones don't.

Now if we were all to be irradiated we wouldn't need lights....