City Again Offering Holiday Lights Recycling Program

WHAT TO DO

WITH THOSE NON-WORKING HOLIDAY LIGHTS

CITY AGAIN OFFERING

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS RECYCLING PROGRAM

RAPID CITY, SD--It's that time of year again!

            You bring out the box of holiday lights from the attic, garage or crawl space.  You work tirelessly to unravel the strings and then place them end-to-end on the floor and connect them.  You plug them into the outlet only to find one string doesn't work.  Worse yet, you're on the ladder and you've carefully connected those strings of icicle lights and you plug them in only to find one string isn't working. You try the replacement bulbs, you push in all the tiny bulbs and they still don't work.

            So what do you do with the non-working string of lights?

            The City's Solid Waste Division is again encouraging the public to recycle those non-working lights by dropping them off in one of several collection boxes in Rapid City.  Officials strongly advise residents to not put the lights in the blue recycling bins or trash containers.

            "We've all been there and we set those non-working sets of lights aside hoping they'll work next year," said Jancie Knight, Solid Waste Division outreach coordinator.  "Well, it's next year, and they still don't work. We ask the public to utilize the collection boxes to recycle the lights and not just toss them into the trash or recycling containers.

            "We don't want homeowners to put the lights into the curbside recycling containers because they are what we call 'tanglers'. When they get into the recycling line at MRF, they can get twisted up in the machinery causing backups and delays."

            Beginning Monday, November 30, the Christmas Light Recycling containers are available at the following locations:

            *Ace Hardware: 1602 E. St. Patrick Street, 320 W. Boulevard, 1724 W. Main Street

            *Western Dakota Tech: 800 Mickelson Drive

            *Boyd's Drug Store: Baken Park (entrance to Boyd's Liquor)

            *City Hall: 300 Sixth Street

            *Rapid City Public Library: 610 Quincy Street

            *MRF Office Building/Landfill: 5165 S. Highway 79

            The bins will be located at these locations until January 31.

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