Holiday Lights

 

It’s December and the days are short and dark. If your homestead generates enough power, you might have strings of festive lights in storage waiting to add some twinkling brightness to the season. But what if you pull them out and find they no longer work? Are they now trash? Fortunately not. It’s actually easy to keep them out of landfills where they take up precious space and waste the recyclable glass and metal components.

   

In BC, when you purchase holiday lights you pay into a service that includes dealing with the products’ end-of-life management. An organization called Product Care Recycling collects, among other recyclables, light fixtures from hundreds of locations across the province including retro-style incandescent strings, twinkling LED garlands, chandeliers, pendant lights, desk lamps, standing lamps, bike lights, book lights, electric candles, flashlights, recessed lights, work lights, security lights, night lights, outdoor, and ceiling and wall fixtures. These can be portable, hardwired, free standing or solar powered. You can recycle almost any type of fixture, as long as its primary purpose is to illuminate a space. They don’t, for instance, accept artificial trees with lights attached.  Check out their website to learn more productcare.org.

   

Product Care Recycling also accepts all types of light bulbs: LEDs, incandescents, halogens, CFLs, fluorescent tubes (straight, curved, square, circular), miniature bulbs, ultra high performance bulbs, UV and germicidal bulbs, as well as other specialized bulbs.

   

After collection, light fixtures and bulbs are then sent to an authorized processor for recycling. There, workers wearing special respirators and other personal protective equipment sort types of lights and stage them for manual or mechanical processing. All standard fluorescent tubes and most other lights are put through a machine called a tumbler which crushes and separates components. The glass, metal, mercury and phosphor are separated so that they can be stored or used again.

   

Locally, you can drop off up to sixteen light bulbs (any combination of bulbs) and up to 5 light fixtures at Parksville Bottle and Recycling Depot, and Dolly’s Home Hardware. Central Builders and Parksville Home Hardware accept light bulbs but not light fixtures. Parksville Bottle and Recycling Depot also accepts commercial light bulbs – meaning over the 16 bulb limit at a given time.

  

When buying holiday lights, keep in mind that LED lights last seven times longer and use up to 90% less energy than standard incandescent strings.

  

May your holidays be merry and bright! – JennyV