Recycle old Christmas lights for cash
Rather than throwing away Christmas lights, residents can recycle them for some extra cash. From now until Jan. 13, South Post Oak Recycling Center will take those unwanted decorations and pay by the pound.
“There’s recycled metal everywhere,” said Brandi Harleaux, South Post Oak Recycling Center owner. “Even in your holiday lights, there’s recycled metal. There’s even more to explore.”
When not properly disposed of, Christmas lights sit in landfills eroding when the materials in them could be reused an infinite number of times.
“The impact of that is that as a society we have to go and extract new raw materials like new copper whereas we could’ve extracted some out of the extension cord,” said Harleaux. “Now, the other side is that if it goes to a single-string recycling bin then it gets entangled with everything else — the plastic bottles, the aluminum cans. It has to be sorted out of that mixture to be separated by itself.”
Back in 2019, Houston City Councilwoman Martha CastexTatum along with Harleaux birthed the idea for the project
after seeing the Houston City Zoo do something similar.
“Brandi and I thought it would be a great idea to emulate that program right in our community, so that we can also encourage people to recycle, especially around the holiday time
when unfortunately, we’re creating a lot of waste,” said CastexTatum who represents District K.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. recycling rate increased from less than 7 % in 1960 to 32%
today. It’s still the national recycling goal to reach 50% by 2050.
“I really want to encourage people to make sure that they are keeping these lights out of our landfills, so we can extend the life of our landfills,” said CastexTatum. “I don’t think the average
Houstonian or American really recognizes the challenge we have with our landfills. It takes 10 to 15 years to construct and permit and get to use of a new landfill. The more things that we can deter from our landfills, the more capacity we’ll have for longer periods of time.”
Through recycling, communities reduce the amount of waste sent to incinerators and landfills. It also conserves natural resources including but limited to water and minerals. Additionally, it prevents pollution plus greenhouse gases by limiting the need to mine and process new raw materials.
“So, we’re really just trying to encourage people to recycle, to reuse and get to a zero-waste economy,” said Castex-Tatum. “I don’t know that we’ll get there anytime soon, but we have to start somewhere and this is a fun project.”
The city of Houston advises residents to not place holiday lights or power cords in the curbside recycling cart. Officials say the lights and power cords will cause problems and even shutdowns at the local recycling facility since the cords can get tangled in the rotating machinery, breaking equipment and potentially injuring workers.