Missouri has been rated as a national leader in the use of those compact fluorescent light bulbs.

A website that promotes them as a way to cut electric bills and reduce the so-called "carbon footprint" of states and cities, says Missouri ranks fourth in the country in per-capita use of those bulbs.

And www.18seconds.org says Joplin is the number one city in the whole country.  And Springfield is number two.

The website says Missourians have bought more than 5.3-million of those bulbs since the start of 2007, that consumers have saved more than $109-million in electric bills, have eliminated the need to burn 643-million pounds of coal and have kept about 2.8-billion pounds of CO2 from going into the atmosphere.

The website ranks some other cities. Columbia is fourth, nationally. St. Joseph is 83rd. The Kansas City Metro area ranks 122nd. The St. Louis Metro area is 133rd. Jefferson City is 209th.

But there’s a problem because the bulbs contain mercury and some places will not recycle them because of the cost of mercury removal.