LAFAYETTE: Don’t Toss Those Christmas Lights – Recycle Them!

The turkey and stuffing have been put away (stored nicely on my waistline, thank you!) and the holiday decorations have come out; the season is officially upon us!

Regardless of what you are celebrating, if you are decorating with lights and you love our planet, you'll want to read this.

On Monday, the Official Townsquare Media Holiday Tree was erected in our lobby. Our holiday of choice: Christmas!

It has been decorated oh so carefully, creating an esthetically pleasing pyramid of green, red, and white all shiny, shimmering, and blinking!

In the process of going through the decorations that were carefully put after Christmas last year, we found that 4 separate strands of lights that worked fine last year are now nothing more than a string of plastic and metal: heaps of junk.

What did I do with the lights that didn't work from last year? I spent the better half of an hour replacing each light, one by one, in hopes of finding the one that was causing the disruption in the flow of electricity.

It was hope against hope, turns out.

I was about 10 lights into the next strand (of at least 50 lights) and decided to turn my attention to something a little more productive, so I tossed the whole heap into the wastebasket.

And then, I came across this tweet from the Lafayette Consolidated Government:

Color me in red because I had no idea that Christmas lights could be recycled. Sure, they are plastic and metal, but I was under the impression that the plastic and metal had to be separated to be recycled.

How many times have you seen the signs on the recycling bins that say "PAPER" "METAL" "PLASTIC" "TRASH"? I've seen them so often that I thought you could never have one touching or coating the other. I thought wrong.

The Lafayette Consolidated Government is giving you the opportunity to keep more stuff out of our landfills by offering a bin for recycling Christmas Lights.

Best of all, the bin is just up the street from Townsquare Media.

Robicheaux Recreation Center is where the recycling bin is located for lights you no longer want, need, or care to hassle with. The address is 1919 Eraste Landry Road, and it will be accessible from December 3rd until you take your tree down after Christmas.

You will be taking down your tree before February, right? Let's hope so.

Just drop the lights in the bin and be on your way, knowing that you've done something good for the planet.