It’s very easy to spend money on new, more power-efficient gadgets and feel justified. But when it comes to Christmas lights, as with most purchases, you’re better off using or fixing your existing incandescent lights, rather than upgrading to LEDs before you need to.
We know this because we asked Adam Minter, author of the new Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale, but also Junkyard Planet, a book that includes a detailed examination of the thrown-out Christmas lights cycle. Minter also explained the global market for “low-quality wire” in a video he made with iFixit:
At the time of Junkyard Planet’s 2015 publication, Chinese recyclers were buying more than 20 million pounds of American discarded Christmas and other holiday lights every year, and paying decent money for them. They had developed a means of efficiently separating and sifting apart the glass, copper, rubber, and plastic from light strands. The rubber and plastic went to other nearby manufacturers, like the flip-flop maker mentioned in Minter’s video. The recovered copper was highly valuable in an expanding, ever-producing China.
Now the ongoing U.S.-China trade war, and China’s “National Sword” importing restrictions enacted in 2018, have driven prices for recycled holiday lights from 25 cents a pound down to five cents, as of last year. Minter says that many markets for tossed lights have moved from China to other locations, including the U.S. But these other recyclers aren’t situated in affordable proximity to manufacturers that can use the plastic and rubber byproduct, so it’s more likely to be landfilled or incinerated.
That is to say: recycling your tossed Christmas lights is far less of a net good than it used to be, so you should use them while they still work—or are still able to be fixed. There are certainly power savings to LED bulbs, but it’s on the order of one cent per hour for 500 bulbs, as detailed by Rhett Allain at Wired. That can add up, but unless you’re setting up a Griswold-ian wonderland, it’s likely not enough to offset the cost of new bulbs, in money or carbon.
“Generally, the most carbon-intensive portion of any manufactured product’s lifecycle is the production portion,” Minter wrote us. As an example, Apple’s own estimates claim that 83% of the carbon emissions associated with the lifecycle of an iPhone 11 Pro come from its production, Minter noted, while less than 1% comes from end-of-life recycling. While Minter has never found a life-cycle assessment of any holiday lights—we definitely believe he has looked—he imagines their ecological costs to be much the same.
It’s also important to note that your existing holiday lights can likely be fixed, as they’re a fairly simple device. One of the most popular iFixit Answers posts of all time, and the recurring champ of the holiday season, is “Half of the string of LED Christmas lights doesn’t light up.” We turned that into a troubleshooting guide to Christmas lights a few years back. If some or all of your lights don’t work, you should run through its recommended steps:
- Unplug the entire strand before you start working on them
- Check the fuses, usually in the plug body
- Check how each bulb is seated in its socket
- Look for corroded sockets and clean them
- Remove an irreparably damaged socket to save the rest of the lights
If you can’t get your holiday lights to work, no matter what steps you take, check to see if a local agency or another site is specifically accepting holiday lights for recycling. Your standard municipal recycling bucket is likely not the best place to toss the strand.
Top image by Steve Jurvetson/Flickr
crwdns2944067:012crwdne2944067:0
There are so many problems with trying to repair old light strings…
1. hard to come-by replacement bulbs
2. bulbs and especially bulb connectors are not standardized, so swapping for known good ones is very difficult.
3. if multiple bulbs are out, it can be a very time consuming affair to find them all BUT even after finding the bad ones #1 becomes the next big hurdle.
4. when all put together, it is far more cost and time effective to replace the entire string than to try to repair.
smayer97 - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
I haven’t found this to be the case at all. Incandescent holiday string lamp bulbs are readily available both in stores and online. The plastic “Bulb Connector” should be removed and reused from the failed bulb. If a socket becomes too mangled to function properly, it can be removed and the leads sliced - or use your shortest old string for parts in the case of multiple mangled socket bases. Identifying failed bulbs is actually very easy - a magnifying glass is very helpful to spot broken filaments if your eyesight is poor, or use a Volt/Ohm meter if necessary. Spending a little extra time to repair, rather than discarding is a very small price to pay in the larger scheme of things.
John Grzeskowiak -
Fixing and repairing is always more time intensive than replacing. Replacing is the easiest thing in the world to do, and the worst thing for the planet. Sure, it’s time consuming to check each and every bulb, but replacements are easy. Every single light string I own with replaceable bulbs—bought in pieces over the last 15 years—not only includes replacement bulbs, but a string I bought 15 years ago uses the same bulbs as a string I bought last year. In my limited experience they are interchangeable. Thanks for the great analysis, and the enlightening information about recycling, or lack thereof.
Jeff Smith - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
Replace and demand our irresponsible leadership [globally] to do what it must do! That is,
1. a global carbon/methane tax to mitigate greenhouse gases.
2. a real and effective recycling program near manufacturing locations.
that is precisely what our government is for. Then we don’t have to feel like $hit when we throw out a freaking Xmas light. And even better our children will be able to breathe.
Jonathan Witt - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
The Lightkeeper Pro works many times to repair light strings. Trying that should be step 1, before checking each bulb, cleaning sockets, etc.
It has worked many times for me. It’s very good at fixing the problem where half the string is out but half is on.
It’s available for about $20 in national bed bath stores and online.
Monte87 - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
I agree with Jeff Smith. Most of the time I can pull a bulb from about anywhere and plug it into another string to fix it. Now and then the replacement bulb will be too big…not much can be done there, but if too small you can tinker with it, with shims or whatever, and get it to make contact inside the socket. By far the most difficult part is locating the offending bulb(s). It’s real satisfying when you find and fix the problem though!
Scott King - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
I have learned, the hard way, that the incandescent “stay-lit” bulbs can be the death-nail for a string of lights. These work by including some fusing wire such that when the filament breaks and the full line voltage is across this backup path, it fuses and short-circuits the bulb, allowing current to pass and light the remaining bulbs. If it is something like a 50 bulb string, the voltage on the remaining bulbs increases slightly - by 2% for the first one to burn out. Because the string remains lit, you might not notice or care that a bulb is out. Then a second goes and then a third and fourth. At some point, the increasing voltage on the remaining bulbs is too much and an avalanche effect starts and all remaining bulbs fail. Now you have a string with ZERO good bulbs. That is never worth fixing because a string costs less than buying a string’s worth of bulbs separately.
Ross Heitkamp - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
A couple repair notes:
Use replacement bulbs that match your string length. A 35 light string bulb is a higher voltage than a 50 light string bulb. Mismatching will cause shortened life. But, if that criteria is met, you can change the bulb from one socket/base to another by straightening the leads and pulling it out.
To troubleshoot, one can use logic to speed up the process, though it might be too tedious for most. Using an ohm-meter, you can check for continuity down the line since they are all in series. Clip one lead to the prong of the plug that goes to the first light - the other prong goes to the end of the string. Then remove a bulb from halfway down the string and test for continuity to the contact on the side coming from the plug end. This will tell you if there is a dead bulb in the first half of the string. If there is, go halfway back and test again. If not, replace the bulb and go halfway more towards the end - doing a binary search means 6 checks is enough for a 64 bulb string.
Ross Heitkamp - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
If you live in a climate where you have to heat your home anyway and the incandescent bulbs are indoors, the extra power consumed versus LED is helping heat your home, so you are merely replacing a tiny amount of your home heating fuel with electricity. If instead you are using the larger 5-Watt or 7-Watt bulbs, then the extra power used adds up quickly. Yet, remember that your lights will be on for only a small percentage of the year. Using a timer on those LED lights? That timer may be using as much power as the LED string, so it can be nearly as efficient to run the LED’s 24/7 for the holiday duration than to have a timer consuming power too. Still, the total cost is in the pennies per day, if that. Yes, keep old strings running as long as possible before discarding.
nbeck - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
Hint for finding blown lamp in a series string: Use a non-contact AC power tester, usually powered by 2 AAA cells looks like a large pencil. It beeps when close to a powered wire. Also works just as well for bulbs. Go along a plugged-in string from bulb to bulb until the beeping stops. You have found the failed bulb, within 1 socket either way. Works fast. You may have to move the socket away from the wires if the tester is too sensitive to the voltage in the other wires.
nbeck - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
Cleaning all the contacts sounds like a lot of work. I’ll give the string a quick check for blown bulbs, and try swapping in some new ones, but after that I’ll just throw it away. These things last for several years, so it’s not worth the time and effort trying to get a faulty set working again. Last set died completely after 10 years of use. When I went to buy a new string LEDs were the only option, which means replacement bulbs for the old set would have been impossible to get too.
Ian - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0
Christmas lights are free to bring in but landfill charges will apply if you other items in your load. You can also take to a private metal recycler. Find options through the Alberta Recycling Hotline. It's very easy to spend money on new, more power-efficient gadgets and feel justified. This year lots of families in cities, towns and communities across. Ireland will be switching on new Christmas light.
HomeSchooling - crwdns2934203:0crwdne2934203:0