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AMERICORPS > Member Blog > Weighing in at Over 500 Pounds

Weighing in at Over 500 Pounds

Published on: March 16, 2016

Written by Rosie Manzo, Bourne House Member Leader

Thank you to all those who donated their lights and held a collection site!

After a little over of a month, the Holiday Light Recycling Drive was able to save 573 pounds of holiday string lights from heading to the landfill. These lights were brought to a local metal recycling shop in Hyannis, where the copper and other metals inside the strings are scrapped and recycled. Ideally, the entire strand can be separated and recycled (i.e. glass, plastic, metal) and there are organizations who will do this! Here are some resources for your future holiday recycling needs.

Cape Light Compact, a local Cape Cod energy services organization, generously donated new LED string lights to the raffle winners of the Holiday Lights Drive. CLC serves over 200,000 customers through various energy efficiency programs and initiatives, including helping their customers save with these LED holiday lights! For more information on their services visit their website at http://www.capelightcompact.org/

Recycling lights at Ferreira’s Metal Recycling in Hyannis.
Recycling lights at Ferreira’s Metal Recycling in Hyannis.

So is this really worth our time, going through the effort of recycling our lights? Well, after lighting up the holidays, Christmas and holiday lights are taken down and either stored away for next year or thrown in the trash to be replaced. To start with, landfill contribution from trashed holiday lights can pose a threat to wildlife as they can choke or get strangled, just as easily as animals are harmed by plastic can rings. Additionally, it can take anywhere from one hundred to over a thousand years for holiday lights to decompose, due to their plastic, metal, and glass composition.

With the arrival of newer and more efficient options for lighting, it makes sense to promote these products for the holiday season. Switching to LED lighting is beneficial for anyone hanging lights during the holidays, whether just on a Christmas tree, throughout the house or on a large intricate display outside. LED’s use about 75% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, pose less of a fire threat, are sturdier without using glass bulbs, and can shine for 10 years longer on average than incandescent bulbs.

Just a portion of the donated lights to be recycled.
Just a portion of the donated lights to be recycled.

To put it in perspective, a 6-foot Christmas tree will use about six 100-bulb strands. Lighting a railing and a few bushes and trees outside could run a homeowner another six (or more) 100-bulb strands. Based on these assumptions, throughout the holiday season, your home would use twelve 100-bulb strands and given an average daily use of 8 hours, your monthly lighting costs for these lights alone would be about an extra $44. Using LED holiday lights in the same scenario would cost about $7 for the month, an 84% savings! I used this Holiday Lighting Calculator to find these estimates.

Magnify these savings over the course of multiple holiday seasons and homeowners could end up saving hundreds of dollars! So why not save some money your next holiday season and spend it on something or someone you care about instead!