Tina and I packed up Christmas today. We were the last on the street to do it. We do not have any of the kids this weekend, so we decided to do a thorough job of it and actually sort, toss and donate everything we could. It was awesome. We managed to consolidate the entire two household mountain of decorations into six boxes…that’s indoor and outdoor. Very satisfying.
We also sorted through the lights. We did not use all of our lights this year and some of our lights went out over the holidays (I will save Planned Obsolescence rant for another post). So, we plugged in every light set and kept only the ones that worked. Brilliant, except that most of them did not work anymore and we ended up with a heartbreaking number of light sets that were useless. Here is a shot of them.
So, while I rant and get all worked up over the fact that there are only two things you can do with these Christmas lights – spend hours and hours and hours hunting for the culprit bulb on each strand or throw them out – Tina gets on the internet and looks up what other people are doing with them and finds a Christmas light recycling program.
http://www.christmas-light-source.com/Christmas-Lights-Recycling-Program_c_210.html
For the price of shipping these lights to Fort Worth, we can get them to a group that will take them over to a recycling plant and receive money from that to buy books for the Toys for Tots center in Dallas/Fort Worth. Also, if you include your name, address and email address, they will send you a 10% coupon to buy lights on their site for next year.
This recycling group separates the strings into plastic, glass and copper wire and recycles everything. Here, you don’t even need to click on the link. Just box up your nonworking Christmas lights and send them here:
Christmas Light Source Recycling Program
1923 6th Avenue
Fort Worth, TX 76110
95% reduction in energy use
- Lasts up to 100,000 hours indoors
- Fire safe
- Bulbs won’t break
- AND IF ONE BULB GOES OUT THE REST OF THE STRING STAYS LIT.
xo
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2 comments:
Doh! We also threw out some nonworking lights this year. I'll remember your Ft. Worth place for next year. I was able to find new LED lights at 50% off before Christmas at the local drug store, so we are stumbling toward LEDs, as well. I just hope they truly are sturdier than the old kind.
i was totally resistant to LEDs for the longest time until I looked them up. I thought they were those lights-in-a-rope thing.
I understand they last for a very long time, which is more than I can say for our single season light strands we use now. :-(
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