How to Recycle Christmas Lights and Holiday Lights in Boulder County
The holiday season is here, and that means it’s time to untangle those Christmas lights and deck the halls!
Whether you’re channeling your inner Clark Griswold or just aiming for a cozy glow for the solstice season, we all know the sinking feeling of realizing a string of lights are broken and need to be recycled. Plug in to sustainability this winter by recycling your old stringed lights!
Where to Recycle Your Broken Holiday Lights
Don’t allow your broken Christmas lights to dim your shine—if you can’t repair your string lights, recycle them at the Eco-Cycle/City of Boulder Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (CHaRM) in Boulder instead! Holiday lights are accepted for recycling year-round since they contain precious copper metal resources, which can (and should) be recycled indefinitely!
Where Christmas Lights Go at the CHaRM
Throughout the holiday season and beyond, we have a bin for recycling Christmas lights at the CHaRM separate from the “Cables and Wires” bin we have year-round. Here’s why: One gaylord—that’s what the giant, industrial cardboard boxes you’ll see around the lane are called—is for thicker cables such as extension cords, which contain more copper per pound. Christmas lights go in a separate recycling bin (gaylord) because they typically have intertwining strands of tiny wires that are much smaller in circumference (like the ones you may have intended for a Christmas tree this season) as well as a higher proportion of non-recyclable plastic housing and bulbs. So when you visit the CHaRM, be sure to keep an eye out for the String Lights bin if you’re looking to recycle your old Christmas lights!
Why do we collect and recycle holiday lights separately?
We do this because the Eco-Cycle CHaRM facility maintains a tight operating budget, and by collecting these items separately, we enable our recycling markets to offer us a better exchange rate for the gaylord containing thicker cables that have more copper in them. If thicker cables and string lights were to be all mixed together, this option would not be possible.
In turn, this gives the CHaRM a little more leeway in the budget to cover the costs of recycling materials that, while important to keep out of the landfill, do not have as much market value and are more expensive to recycle. And that’s just good business practice!
Recycling Christmas Lights Outside Boulder
You do not need to be a City of Boulder resident to use the CHaRM, but if you need to recycle old holiday lights and the CHaRM in Boulder isn’t conveniently located near you, check your municipality’s website to see if they offer a seasonal collection for cables and wires in your area, such as Longmont’s drop-off program available through Jan. 5, 2025. You can also check out this mail-in program, which allows you to ship holiday lights if local options are not available.
And if you’re in the market to buy new holiday lights, be sure to opt for environmentally friendly LED lights instead of traditional incandescents—they use 90% less energy, and will last up to 25 times longer!
Learn more about recycling holiday items and find sustainable holiday tips in our Zero Waste Holiday Guide, available in English and Spanish.
