Christmas lights are big business around the holiday season. The number of holiday lights sold each year is estimated at around 150 million. In 2011, Americans spent more than $6 billion on Christmas decorations, with the average person spending around $47 on decorations and an additional $18 on seasonal plants.
What a lot of people don’t think about, though, is what happens to all those lights once they’ve worn out their shine. With so many lights being purchased every year, that means a lot of old lights going into landfills. One Kansas City company is doing its part to help make sure that all those old lights don’t just go to waste.
Southeast Enterprises is a local packaging and assembly business with ISO certification that provides safe and challenging employment for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They currently employ around 177 individuals in their Kansas City facility, which includes a 27,000 square foot production area and 6,300 square feet of warehouse space. Southeast handles a variety of multi-piece assembly and volume packaging jobs for businesses all over the area, but starting last year they’ve also begun performing another function around the holidays.
Their KC Holiday Lights Recycling program offers an opportunity for Kansas City area residents to recycle their old and unwanted holiday lights. Southeast has partnered with over 165 schools, libraries, businesses, and other locations to provide a range of collection stations where lights can be dropped off.
Click Map below for list of drop off locations
Once the lights are collected, the employees at Southeast Enterprises sort the lights, clip apart the light receptacles and plugs, and recycle each component. Like many forms of electrical wiring, the holiday lights contain copper, which is sent to City Scrap Metal in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. The rebate that Southeast receives for this copper wire covers most of the workers’ wages for the KC Holiday Lights Recycling program. The other parts of the light strands are sent to other area locations for proper recycling.
In 2012, the KC Holiday Lights Recycling program recycled over 32,000 pounds of lights, and this year they’re hoping to get that number up to 34,000 or more. Lights are bad news for landfills. Most of the components of the lights aren’t biodegradable, and the plastic and wire can take hundreds or even thousands of years to decompose. Furthermore, the tangled strands of lights are dangerous to animals that might scavenge in or near landfills. Just like it can be difficult for us to untangle a strand of lights when we take it out of the box each year, an animal that gets caught in a strand may be unable to untangle itself and can strangle or starve.
The KC Holiday Lights Recycling initiative aims to help protect the environment by reducing waste and keeping lights out of landfills, while also providing work for its employees through the holidays. The initiative begins by the end of November 2013 and runs through January 26, 2014, with Wal-Mart locations offering collections sites through December 30.
Some interesting tid-bits about Southeast Enterprises:
> They have been in business for 38 years
> They have never had a layoff in history!
> They are ISO 9001:2008 certified
> They have a room approved by the Missouri Dept. of Health & Senior Services
for packaging spices and dry soup mixes
> They produce 50,000 veterinary medicine kits a month for Zoetis
> They process, clean, and reassemble returned Time-Warner cable boxes
> Assembled 8.5 million swabs for throat cultures since 1991
> Recycled 34,000 lbs. of holiday lights with no components ending up in the landfill
> Process over a quarter million die cut items for Mid-Continent Public Library each year
How you can help:
According to DeeAnn Stock, Executive Director, the thing they need most is not donations (unless you have a delivery truck to donate!), but more work for their employees is needed. If you are a business owner, consider what Southeast Enterprises can do for you:
> Increase production without increasing your current workforce
> Eliminate the headaches of hiring and training new employees
> Avoid providing costly benefit packages
> Reduce temporary labor costs
Contact Southeast Enterprises direct for More info
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