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Recycle Your Holidays

Recycle old holidays lights this season and save energy with LEDs

Ever wonder what to do with the tangled mess of lights that marks the start of many Minnesotans holiday season? Ring in the holidays by getting rid of old, broken, inefficient light strands and upgrading to new, efficient LED holiday lights!

CERTs is partnering again with the Recycling Association of Minnesota (RAM) for the 2013-2014 holiday season on Recycle Your Holidays™. RAM recycles every part of the light strings—the metal wires, the plastic casing, and even the lights themselves. We’re providing a map of drop-off locations that are accepting holiday lights, and it’s also possible for you to sign up as a location.

Become a drop-off site: From Ely to Fairmont and everywhere in between, any business or organization can participate as a collection site at NO COST. It is a great way to provide a value added service to customers. The Recycling Association of Minnesota provides recycling signs, promotional materials and free pick-up of the collected materials. If your business or organization is interested in participating in the Recycle Your Holidays™ program, you just need to fill out a quick form on RAM’s website. It’s that easy! Once you’ve signed up, RAM will contact you and help promote your site as a collector. If your community does not currently have collection sites, spread the word to local businesses and organizations to get them involved! Click here to sign up as a drop-off location >>

And just so you know, the program has had quite the impact! Since we’ve been partnering with RAM, nearly 650,000 pounds of holiday lighting have been recycled through the program. If even half of these light strands were upgraded to more efficient LED holiday lighting, Minnesotans are saving over 5.4 million kilowatt-hours and $430,000 year after year. That’s enough energy to power the electricity of 477 homes for an entire year!

We’ve also saved several animals, children, and adults alike from being attacked by messy tangles of holiday lights (like the darling poodle pictured here). So if nothing else, do it for them!!

Lights attack defenseless poodle

 

Get Answers blog series The Get Answers series on the Energy Stories Blog offers useful tips from CERTs and our partners to help you get to the bottom of your energy efficiency and renewable energy questions. Click here to see more stories in the series >>

 

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