Update: West Seattle Junction scenes – lights-recycling plus Hometown Holidays

As of a little more than an hour ago, Sustainable West Seattle was already on its fifth box of Christmas lights brought in for recycling at its West Seattle Farmers’ Market booth. Till 2 pm, you’ll find them there – along with the meters comparing LED lights to incandescent:

Just around the corner from the Farmers’ Market, the Hometown Holidays (co-sponsored by WSB) Belgian-mule-drawn carriage rides (free!) – we caught up with them as they headed north on 44th before turning onto Alaska by the market:

The carriage rides continue till 3, as do take-it-yourself Santa photos at City Mouse. One Farmers’ Market reminder – NO market the next two Sundays, since it’s Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, BUT there’s a special nighttime edition at Junction Plaza Park this Thursday (December 22), 5-8 pm. (Sustainable WS plans to roast chestnuts, providing leader Christina Hahs’ test run tonight goes well!)

4:23 PM UPDATE: Got the final tally from the Christmas-lights-recycling collection:

That photo’s courtesy of Chas Redmond, who staffed the SWS booth today with Hahs (in the photo) and Patrick Dunn (best known as award-winning manager of the WS Tool Library). By 2 pm, he says, they had filled the pickup-truck bed with boxes of ready-to-recycle lights, and they had finished the old-vs.-new lights comparison: “The results of our demo showing the electricity draw of conventional, incandescent mini’s and the LEDs – with a string of 100 LED lights and another string of 75 incandescent mini lights running for three hours, the LED lights drew 3 watts and the incandescents (even though there were fewer) drew 300 watts – roughly 1 watt/hour for the LED string and 100 watts/hour for the incandescent string.” One more sustainability P.S. – for Christmas-giving/stocking-stuffing, the Tool Library is suggesting gift memberships (raffle ticket included!).

10 Replies to "Update: West Seattle Junction scenes - lights-recycling plus Hometown Holidays"

  • Kate K December 18, 2011 (1:10 pm)

    Love the idea of recycling the no-longer-working holiday lights. Thanks Sustainable West Seattle!

  • Alex December 18, 2011 (7:06 pm)

    It’s true that led uses a lot less power than traditional lights, but they are also quite a bit less bright. I recently switched over to all-led, and the difference in brightness was disappointing… I would rather they had preserved the light output, even if it meant they saved less electricity. I guess the manufacturers figure the best way to sell LED is with fantastic wattage claims, not claims they have just as good quality light.

  • Lorelee December 18, 2011 (9:26 pm)

    We loved the mule rides!

  • Tracy White December 18, 2011 (11:43 pm)

    I compromise. Incandescent for the gutters, LEDs for the windows.

  • bridge to somewhere December 19, 2011 (8:57 am)

    FRAK! I cannot believe I missed the mule rides once again. :-(

  • owen December 19, 2011 (10:47 am)

    Anyone know if there’ll be another chance to recycle holiday lights?

    • WSB December 19, 2011 (10:56 am)

      Owen – You can drop them off at McLendon Hardware in White Center; there’s a collection box all season long. Sorry, I meant to mention that – TR

  • owen December 19, 2011 (12:10 pm)

    Thanks WSB – your tip led me to King County’s list of sites accepting holiday lights. McLendon’s and Whole Foods look like the easiest options.

    • WSB December 19, 2011 (2:18 pm)

      Thanks in turn, Owen; we’ll add that link to the Holidays page. Having dropped off a bagful at the SWS booth yesterday, I’m feeling inspired to get the rest of the old lights out of the basement before season’s end …

  • West Seattle Tool Library December 19, 2011 (2:42 pm)

    Glad to hear it! Obviously, we’ll need to make this part of our annual tradition!

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