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The magic of the holiday season has arrived, with countless homeowners digging out boxes of Christmas lights to light up their homes! Whether you are a homeowner and have discovered your old lights are damaged beyond repair, or you are a business that installs and removes Christmas lights. Knowing the proper methods of recycling Christmas lights is vital, as it ensures correct disposal and helps reduce waste!

How Recycling Can Benefit Your Business

If you are in the business of installing and removing Christmas lights – whether for commercial or residential properties – you will undoubtedly come into possession of hundreds, if not thousands, of dead Christmas lights. Rather than tossing them into the trash, you can aid your business returns and your environment by recycling them properly.

First, in this era of business, green initiatives are a critical marketing strategy to boost your sales and reputation. By making it known that you properly recycle Christmas lights, you are more likely to gain valuable clients who repeatedly use and recommend your business.

Second, when you have so much waste as a business, your disposal costs can skyrocket to higher levels than Santa’s sleigh. By recycling Christmas lights with a local recycling center, you can not only decrease your disposal costs, but you may even receive compensation for your recycling.

Why Recycling Christmas Lights Properly is Important

Like any other human-made product, Christmas lights can clog up landfills and take decades to break down. This, in turn, contributes to our planet’s waste and pollution crisis. On top of that, Christmas lights that contain Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (a.k.a. CFLs) can release mercury into the air when the bulb breaks!

Fortunately, Christmas lights contain recyclable materials like metal, plastic, and sometimes glass. When you recycle these materials properly, they are crushed into tiny pieces and used to make new items. This benefits everyone by creating a more sustainable, circular economy while decreasing the amount of waste we produce.  

How to Recycle Christmas Lights Properly

As the holiday season draws near and cardboard boxes and wrapping paper pile up, people often forget that recycling Christmas lights isn’t as simple as just tossing them into the recycling bin. Due to the tangled wires, Christmas lights can easily cause issues at a recycling center.

Instead, we suggest collecting damaged or old Christmas lights into a bin and bring them to your local recycling center. For Christmas light installation businesses, you may want to save the lights until the end of the season. Alternatively, you could make a trip after your prime installation times and another after your clients have had you remove the lights for the year.

Community Recycling – Your Local Texas Recycling Center

If you are located in or near the Plano, Texas, area, Community Recycling is your go-to stop for recycling Christmas lights. We will recycle them properly, easing the environmental burden of the holiday season.

If you have any questions about recycling Christmas lights – as a business or homeowner – please don’t hesitate to give us a call!