Sustainability: going green at home

What is sustainability? Some people seem to confuse the concept with the more radical idea of foregoing modern technology, and making everyone else forego it, in the name of protecting the environment. Sustainability certainly means protecting the environment, but it does not require imposition of such costly and disruptive measures. Many people who are going green at home by voluntarily making a number of small adjustments to their lifestyles are moving toward true sustainability.


I recently came across an article about using vinegar to clean things at home. It struck me that long before we had competing brand name products that specialize in washing windows, or dishes, or countertops, etc., housewives used vinegar, baking soda, and salt, among other things, for all house cleaning.  People are starting to conclude that these products have a number of advantages:

• They cost less.
• They are more versatile. For example, vinegar can clean your windows, dishes, microwave ovens, and anything with a mineral buildup.
• And so they take up less cabinet space.
• They work just as well and just as easily.

Notice that this compilation of benefits does not include an environmental calculation. People who are using the old-fashioned cleansers instead of modern specialized products may or may not care about sustainability or going green, but the choice does have an environmental impact. It often requires hazardous materials to manufacture the modern products. Any manufacturing process inevitably adds to the pollution of air, water, and/or soil; some manufacturers work hard to minimize it, but too many others don't. Using the products at home puts them in the water supply.

Anything we buy to clean our home must come in some kind of packaging. Vinegar comes in a glass or plastic bottle. Baking soda comes in a cardboard box. Neither presents problems for recycling. But what about all the pump sprayers and aerosol cans required for so many other products? What can be recycled varies from place to place.

So am I suggesting that everyone has to start washing windows with vinegar instead of Windex™? Of course not. Sustainability does not work that way. I am suggesting that virtually every choice we make about what to use at home has an environmental impact. We will all pay for adverse environmental impacts, whether with our health or with tax dollars. Going green means not so much making great sacrifices as making a multitude of small choices that are good for the environment.  These choices often turn out to have a number of other advantages, which some people might consider even more important.

How to recycle Christmas lights

Every year when I put up my Christmas tree, strands of lights that worked the previous year no longer work. This year I got fed up and took advantage of a post-Christmas half-off sale. Now I have LED lights for next year. They will take 80-90% less energy, thus lowering my carbon footprint. So what do I do with all those incandescent Christmas lights I don't intend to use any more? Recycle them of course!

It's not possible just to put Christmas lights in the recycling bin with the wrapping paper, cans and bottles. Most people just throw them in the trash, where they wind up in the landfill. They will never break down like organic material does, but they will degrade enough to contribute hazardous chemicals to the leachate. At any time before they get covered at the end of the day, animals can get into them. As hard as it is for us to untangle lights every year, it can be fatally difficult for animals that get stuck in them. As a nation, we need to make it a habit to recycle Christmas lights (and nearly everything else).

But how? I had never heard of Christmas tree light recycling. Here are some things I learned on line. One way to recycle anything, of course, is to repurpose it. I found a page with lots of neat ideas for craft projects that use old Christmas lights.

Numerous stores accept Christmas lights for recycling. Home Depot, for example, accepted up to 5 strings of incandescent lights from November 4-14 in exchange for $3 coupon for buying LED lights. That's not helpful for people who don't think of Christmas trees that early, but it is the only similar program for which I found information on the company's own web site. (I confess to not looking very hard, though.)

For at least the past two years Walmarts (in St. Louis, at least), accepted lights for recycling. After Christmas 2009 they collected 3 ton of lights -- more than the weight of a car. Also for the past two years, Minnesota residents have been able to take lights to any of 320 recycling locations, and in the process provide work for disabled people. In the program's first year of operation, it collected 50 tons. My search turned up plenty of sites for other seasonal local collection drives.

Some companies accept Christmas lights by mail and recycle them year-round. HolidayLEDs offers a 25% discount coupon by return email. Environmental LED, Christmas Light Source and Five Star Holiday Decor offer a 10% discount. The latter two also donate part of the proceeds to Toys for Tots.

Each of these companies has its own instructions, but basically, send the lights in the smallest possible cardboard box (which the company will also recycle). Do not use any packing material or plastic ties. If you want the discount coupons, include a card with your name, mailing address, and email address as well. For the least environmental impact, mail the lights to whichever company is the shortest distance from your home.

How does recycling Christmas lights work to keep them out of the landfill? After some preliminary sorting to remove anything that is not recyclable, the lights are put through a shredder. Other machines can then separate copper, glass, various plastics, and anything else that might be recyclable. The companies then sell these materials to manufacturers of various kinds of new products.