Where And How To Recycle Old Christmas Lights In Rockford

It's a yearly tradition in our house, "How do we get rid of the Christmas tree?"

Thankfully, there's enough communication these days that make the task of removing your Christmas tree a bit less of a pain.

There is one other thing that I always struggle with when it comes to holiday decorations, "What about the old lights?"

It seems almost every Christmas there's a bundle of either tree or decorative lights that go bad. The question immediately comes up, "Do we just throw them out?"

The answer would be "No." The lights get tangled in sorting machines causing malfunction and delay. The best thing you can do is recycle the lights.

Christmas Designers:

One of the first ideas that you are going to want to consider is turning your lights over to the local recycling center. Most communities do have a recycling center where people can bring various items that they need to have recycled.

For us in the Rockford area, the go-to is Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful (KNIB). Their website, knib.org, outlines a bunch of different places to drop off your old tree, sans lights, but with a bit of digging you'll notice they also take "holiday string lights" under their "What KNIB Takes" tab.

So instead of just chucking your old and busted lights in the trash, take them to a recycling center in Rockford. You can drop off the lights at either KNIB location on 4665 Hydraulic Road or in Machesney Park at 8409 North 2nd Street.

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Sweet Lenny is the brand manager of 97ZOK, Q98.5, and Operations Manager for Townsquare Media Rockford. Catch him afternoons 3 to 7 on 97ZOK. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and like his page on Facebook.