Denver Residents Encouraged To Recycle Broken Holiday Lights

DENVER (CBS4) - One person's holiday junk, is another person's precious commodity. As you start taking down your Christmas tree and lights, there's an option other than throw them away, both can be recycled.

"This is the lights that came in before Christmas," Lorin Marco said, referencing a pallet of lights that came into Blue Star Recyclers ahead of the holiday.

Marco is the company's business manager, and he said they collected about 600 pounds of the decorative twinklers, and want more people to stop throwing away their holiday lights. 

"Metal is pulled from the wire, the bulbs are crushed and in one way or another the product is reused," Marco said.

Blue Star takes in the lights, sorts them and gets them ready to be shipped to Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations in Wisconsin.

"They're a big multi-million dollar corporation that has the machinery that can pull and separate the precious metals from this," he explained.

While a single strand of lights may not have a lot of materials to resell, it is kind of like throwing away money. It's also bad for the environment.

"The mercury can get into the ground, into our waters." 

The materials in the lights can actually be recycled endlessly, as long as they're properly recycled.

"Even the glass gets reused and certain building materials. It can be the shiny parts in your counter tops."

The price of copper as of Dec. 26th was $2.85 per pound, that's pretty high for the metal historically speaking, but it would it would take a lot of time and work to recycle your own electronics.

"I wouldn't recommend you do it yourself, we're e-steward certified so definitely bring it to us," Marco said.

If you're interested in dropping off lights, you can at 953 Decatur where the company has set-up collection bins, or at Cherry Creek South Drive and Quebec Streets.