Residents on the Outer Cape still have time to drop broken and tangled Christmas lights into recycling bins posted at town transfer stations.
Jordanne Feldman, an AmeriCorps Cape Cod member serving with the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, said she will not be picking up recycling bins on the Outer Cape until Feb. 11.
This winter, AmeriCorps and the extension expanded the holiday lights recycling program from nine municipalities to the entire Cape, except for Dennis, which is doing its own program, said Kari Parcell, the extension’s waste reduction coordinator.
The program has been embraced by the towns, Parcell said. She said when Feldman went to Sandwich to pick up bins in her small SUV, there were so many lights she had to find a larger vehicle in which to transport them.
Scott West at the Orleans Transfer Station said residents have filled four containers of at least 48 gallons each with light strands. He decorated the recycle site with a small artificial Christmas tree to draw attention to the program, until high winds forced him to take it down.
Recycling the lights “is the right thing to do,” said West, who added that the effort is done “at no cost to the towns.”
Feldman is picking up the string light recycling bins from transfer stations and delivering them to Ferreira Iron and Metal Recycling in Hyannis.
Last year, Feldman said, he brought the strings to a recycling facility in Freetown that had special equipment to handle string lights and strip them of material, including copper.
Parcell has said that putting string lights into the regular recycling bins is frowned upon because of their tendency to get caught in conveyor belts.
Feldman said she plans to pick up string light recycling bins on the Upper Cape on Tuesday
AmeriCorps Cape Cod participated in a similar recycling program several years ago that collected thousands of pounds of string lights, and decided to rejuvenate the program last winter. By late December 2018, the towns of Bourne, Sandwich, Mashpee, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Brewster, Harwich, Wellfleet and Truro had signed up.
The expansion of the program represents an opportunity to remove products from the waste stream, Feldman said.
“The people seem to think it’s a good idea,” she said. “They definitely want to see the program continued.”