String lights are not accepted along with traditional curbside recycling. They contain plastic, glass, metals, and electrical wiring that require separation to recycle each material separately. String lights are also a common tangler for sortation equipment at material recovery facilities.

For these reasons, they are often collected at special events or drop-offs. Events for string light recycling occur most commonly around the winter holidays when the greatest volume of lights are bought and discarded. However, because string lights are also used during other holidays and at other times for indoor ad outdoor use, some drop-off centers will collect them year-round. String lights may also be accepted at electronic recycling events and programs.

Education Pitfalls and Best Practices:

• Residents often do not understand the intricacies of recycling items that contain a mix of materials. They may recognize parts of string lights like glass bulb or electrical wiring as valuable and therefore recyclable. This misconception often leads to "wishcycling," placing them in the curbside bins in the hope that they are recyclable, without understanding the risks they pose.
• If the messaging from local governments, retailers, and haulers is inconsistent, it weakens education efforts. To be effective, follow the messaging in this guide.
• Use frequent, visible reminders that are aligned across multiple platforms such as websites, mailers, social media, and seasonal outreach.

Michigan Perspective:

In Michigan, MRFs regularly report shutdowns caused by items such as string lights, plastic bags/wrap, and hoses. This is especially true just after the holiday season, when discarded string lights sharply increase. Facilities in Kent, Emmet, and Washtenaw Counties have noted that cords and string lights are among the top contaminants entering curbside recycling carts each winter.

• String lights should never be placed in curbside recycling because they tangle in sorting equipment and can cause damage and outages.
• When string lights jam machinery at a recycling sorting facility, staff must shut down equipment and manually cut them out, increasing safety risks to workers.
• String lights contain valuable copper wiring that is recoverable when properly recycled through drop-off or mail-in programs.
• Residents have multiple convenient options for recycling string lights during the winter holiday season.

How to Recycle: 

• Drop-off - Community centers, offices, zoos, and schools may set up one-time or short-term collection drives for string lights.
• Retail/Other - Small to large retailers, hardware stores, office supply stores, etc.

Importance of Recycling:

Recycling components of string lights reduces the need to produce virgin materials. For instance, string lights often contain copper wiring. Recycling the copper within string lights reduces the demand for new copper mining, which is associated with habitat disruption, soil and water contamination, and significant energy use.

However, another critical reason to properly recycle string lights is that they can tangle and jam sorting equipment. As long, flexible items, they wrap tightly around gears, rollers, and disks that are used at recycling sorting facilities. These jams force workers to shut down equipment, climb onto platforms, and manually cut out the tangled items - creating unnecessary risk of injury. When residents place string lights in curbside carts, they increase contamination rates, slow down recycling operations, and reduce the overall efficiency of Michigan's recycling system.