Why Are Some Street Lights Turning Purple?
A strange phenomenon is happening around the United States with the color of streetlights. You may or may not have noticed it in your area, but some streetlights are putting off a purple glow, and it’s not intentional.
Since 2020, people have been noticing that some of the streetlights in different areas of the country have been turning purple. The purple streetlights have shown up in Texas, North Carolina, New Mexico, Iowa, Kentucky, Kansas, Florida, California, and Wisconsin, just to name a few. They’ve even turned up in Ireland and Canada. But if purple streetlights weren’t put up on purpose, then what happened?
Streetlights usually give off a white color, usually from LEDs, or an orange color, which comes from low-pressure or high-pressure sodium vapor lights. When electricity runs through these lights and vaporizes the sodium, it gives off an orange glow. Cities began switching from sodium-vapor streetlights to bright-white LEDs, which were cheaper, more energy efficient, and lasted longer, almost up to a decade.
The mystery of the purple streetlights is that they are, in fact, LED streetlights, but they have a significant flaw. Though many of the reports of streetlights inexplicably turning a purple color started in 2020, the defect began during the manufacturing process between 2017 and 2019.
