By WKTV Staff and Kent County Department of Public Works
What can and cannot be recycled in Kent County, and how do it. And what happens to everything else? WKTV Journal, working with Kent County Department of Public Works Resource Recovery Specialist Lauren Westerman, are working to look at specific consumer products and other items and give you the answers.
In this post, we look at those annoying strings of holiday lights that no longer work. Packaging often does not have any recycling information. But what does that mean? Here is the lowdown from an expert:
Holiday string lights are considered electronic waste. They cannot be recycled through single-stream or curbside recycling collection programs. Kent County Department of Public Works (DPW) has collection bins for holiday string lights at both North Kent Recycling & Waste Center and South Kent Recycling & Waste Center or they can be brought to our electronics recycling collection programs. After Kent County DPW collects the string lights, they are taken to an electronics recycling company where the various component parts (types of metal, wires, plastics, glass, etc.) are separated and recycled accordingly.
When you purchase new holiday string lights, there are a few different parts of the packaging to be aware of when it comes to proper disposal. If the lights come in a box, empty the cardboard box, flatten it, and place it into your single-stream curbside recycling cart. If you have any soft and flexible plastic packaging, tape, or twist-ties, place them into the garbage.
Do you have a question about a specific consumer product or other item? Contact WKTV at ken@wktv.org. Please send a photo of the product and the recycling label if available.
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