The holiday season is quickly approaching and environmental conscious consumers should be thinking about ramping up their efforts to conserve and reduce waste.  The holiday season (which most define as the period that begins around Thanksgiving and concludes after New Year’s) is a period of excess for many: we spend a lot, we eat a lot, we drive a lot, and we produce a lot of trash.  By even the most conservative estimates, the average household creates about 25% more trash during the holiday season.  As a result the holiday season has a significantly higher adverse impact on the environment.  However, the upside of this is that environmentally conscious consumers can have the biggest impact during the holiday season.

There are a variety of organizations that offer holiday waste control programs and we will see them starting to pop up on some of our favorite blogs and sites on the web in the upcoming months.  One such holiday program that I am involved in is the HolidayLEDs.com Christmas light recycling program.  This is our third year operating the program and we are looking forward to another successful year.  The program accepts all kinds of used incandescent Christmas lights for recycling. All those who participate receive a coupon for 15% off the purchase of energy efficient LED Christmas lights at HolidayLEDs.com.

In order to ensure that our program is as environmentally friendly as it can be we are asking participants to consolidate shipments of recycled lights with friends, family, members, church groups or other organizations.  Consolidating the shipments reduces the impact that shipping the lights to HolidayLEDs.com has on the environment.  We also encourage people to first look for local recycling solutions.

Our program is just one of several that will be offered this holiday season to help consumers reduce the amount of waste they create this holiday season.  Keep your eyes open for details on other programs that can help you reduce your footprint this holiday season.

I’ve written a fair amount in the past about LED Christmas lights and the environmental benefits and costs savings they can provide.  But one thing I don’t think I’ve discussed is the power consumption differences of various types of incandescent Christmas lights.  Because some of the older style C7 and C9 Christmas lights draw as much as 7 watts of electricity per bulb, upgrading your old style incandescent lights to LED first will likely have the biggest payoff.  I do not want to infere or suggest that small changes don’t make a big impact but sometimes it makes economic sense to prioritize certain lighting upgrades over others.

Let’s use a simple example to illustrate this point.  A average size two store home that is decorated with 1000 C9 incandescent Christmas lights which are illuminated for 8 hours a day will consume about 40 KWh of electricity each day.  The total cost of operating these lights for a 30 day period would be about $115.00.  The same set up using a C7 LED replacement bulb would only consume about .48 KWh of electricity each day for a 30 day cost of only $1.37.  That is a total savings of over $100 in less than a month.

While someone using 1000 incandescent mini lights for the same amount of time during the holiday season would save a lot of energy and money by switching to LED Christmas lights, the savings are not nearly as substantial as in the example above.  The 1000 mini lights would consume about 120 KWh of power during the 30 day period while the LEDs would consume less than 15.  This is still 80% less power and money but as you can see the financial impact as not nearly as great as in the first example.

In the long run switching over to LEDs will make a big difference in holiday energy consumption no matter what type of incandescent lights you are replacing; however, if you have both C7 or C9 and mini lights and you can’t upgrade all of them at once it makes a lot of sense to start with the C7 and C9s.

A while back I wrote and article about how to calculate the energy savings of LED Christmas lights.  The article I wrote describe the formula and included a link to some other resources.  We recently developed a calculator that does all the work for you.  All you have to do now is enter the various data and outcomes your answer.  In addition to calculating the cost and energy savings of using LED Christmas lights the calculator can also help you determine how many Christmas or holiday lights you should have for your tree.

If you like doing math feel free to follow the directions in my previous article–otherwise just try this Christmas light calculator.

We frequently help our customers analyze the cost savings that can be achieved by using LED lights instead of incandescents. The calculations to determine the cost savings are not very complicated but it is a lot easier with a good conversion calculator handy. Our Energy Scrooge Calculator provides some interesting information about the benefits of LED lights but we’ve ever written about how to calculate the exact savings one can expect by replacing their old incandescent Christmas lights with LED lights. Here’s the data you will need to perform this calculation:

1. Total # of bulbs;
2. Wattage of the individual individual incandescent bulbs to be replaced. (C9s are generally about 8-9 watts; C7s are generally about 6-7 watts; and mini lights are usually between .50 and 1 watt;
3. Amount of time bulbs will be illuminated; and
4. The average cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity in your area. ($.10 is typically a safe number.)

Step 1: Calculate total watts

Multiple the total number of bulbs by the wattage of 1 bulb. This equals the total watts of the display

Step 2: Enter data into conversion calculator

Enter the product of the formula in Step 1 into the “Watts” field in this calculator. Next, enter the total amount of time the lights will be illuminated in the “Time” section of the calculator. (Note that the time can be in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, or years.)

This calculator will calculate the total kilowatt hours consumed by this lighting display.

Step 3: Determine cost of electricity

Multiple the total kilowatt hours the display will consume (as determined by the calculator in Step 2) and multiple it by the average cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity in your area. The Department of Energy website has statistics on the average cost of electricity.

Step 4: Determine to cost to operate Christmas lights using LEDs

Repeat steps 1-3. The average LED holiday style light is between .05 and .07 watts.

Step 5: Calculate the savings

Subtract the cost of operating the LED lights from the cost of operating the incandescent lights. This is the total cost savings you can expect by switching to LEDs.

In further celebration of Earth Day, Holidayleds.com will be donating $1000 to a qualifying environmental non-profit organization chosen by popular vote. Any U.S. 501(c)(3) organization with a mission related to sustainability, environmentalism, the fight against global warming or any other environmental cause is eligible.

Right now, HolidayLEDs.com is seeking suggestions for qualified charities. The site will be accepting suggestions for the next 14 days. All suggested charities who meet the minimum requirements will be placed on a ballot. Upon closing of the suggestion period, HolidayLEDs.com will conduct an online vote to determine which charity will receive the donation. The date for the official vote will be announced at a later date and will also be posted on this blog.

Please visit the site and suggest a worthy charitable organization.

Spring is just around the corner (a very long corner for those of us who live in the north.)  Americans are very concerned about their lawns.  Each year we spend millions of dollars on fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals and services to make sure that our yards are greener than the neighbors.   There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a nice lawn, but its important that we consider the effect that our lawn care efforts have on the environment.

Apparently, there was enough concern about this and our practices had a significant enough impact to warrant special consideration.  In 2002, the National Lawns and Environment Initiation was founded.  The goal of this initiative is to encourage environmentally responsible lawn care and landscaping practices in residential design and maintenance.  The initiative is run by a committee of governmental and non-governmental organizations including the EPA, USDA, the National Gardening Association, and the University of Florida.

The initiative has develop several useful resources for home owners and landscape professionals.  Particularly useful is the list of 10 Guiding Principles for Responsible Lawn Care and Landscaping.   I think this guide is the best place to start if you want to learn about some things you can do to minimize the impact your lawn care practices have on the environment.   The first guideline on the list is probably the most important.  The #1 guideline is to spend the time to learn about your lawn.  If you want to improve your practices to minimize their environmental impact you have to first understand the environment.

Take a walk around your yard.  Look carefully at the types of plants and wildlife inhabit your outdoor living space.  Try to identify all of the plants and do some simple online research to learn as much as you can about them.  Do the same for the wildlife that inhabits your yard.  Learn about what types of habitats the various creatures that live in your yard like.  All of these things will create a good foundation of knowledge that will help you make decisions about yard care that are both effective and not harmful to your environment.   I think it also makes sense to take a walk through the woods or other unimproved habitat closest your house.  Look around and observe the types of plants and animals that live in this natural environment.  Carefully analysis the habitat.  This information will help you create a lawn and landscape plan the fits into the natural environment.

Once you spent the time to learn about your yard go back to the guidelines and use them to help you prepare a plan for caring for your yard.  If you use a lawn care service make sure to discuss your plan with the company you use.  In many places there are lawn care and landscaping companies that specialize in environmentally friendly lawn care.  Seattle, San Francisco, and many of the other larger cities on the west coast have a number of companies that specialize in green lawn care.

A quick update on the results of my companies’ holiday recycling program…Although we extended our Christmas light recycling program into a year-round operation and the lights are still trickling in, the bulk of the participation is over.  We estimate that we had over 5,000 participants and that we received approximately 3,000 pounds of Christmas lights.   We we really please with the participation.  Quite frankly, we thought we might receive a handful of lights and that would be the end of it.  I suppose we underestimated the willingness of people to make that extra effort to do the right thing for the environment.

We sent a free set of LED Christmas lights to the first 100 participants and the remaining participants who submitted their lights to us before January 31, 2008 will receive a coupon.   For those of you who participated, thank you for helping us make the program a success and you can expect your coupon to arrive via email or regular mail within the next month.

We are going to expand the program next year and substantially increase the number of sets we give away.  We are also looking for people or organizations who may be interested in participating in next years program.  We will be looking for groups willing to set up collection sites as well as sponsors who may be interested in helping us develop a Christmas light exchange program.   Please contact us if you or anyone you know may be interested.

Not really but HolidayLEDs.com announced today that it will continue its Christmas light recycling program beyond the previously established sunset date of January 31, 2008.

So far the company reports that it has recycled over 3,000 pounds of incandescent holiday lights which it received from several hundred participants. Anyone who is looking for some place to send their old Christmas lights to die can mail them to HolidayLEDs.com for recycling.

And because I know it will be asked, the lights are sent to a independent recycling company which chops the lights into little tiny pieces using a commercial shredder. The various components (copper, PVC, glass, etc.) are separated and then processed. The lead is extracted from the PVC and shipped to Chinese toy manufacturers who use it to make paint for toys for children. I’m kidding. But I did read a report about a “recycling” company that was actually shipping the old light strings to China where the insulation was manually removed and the copper was extracted for smelting…not sure that this is a net gain.

I own an e-commerce company and we do a lot of shipping and receiving. We work hard to minimize our packaging waste (in fact we don’t use any packaging material.) I see a lot of waste coming in from various vendors and to be fair some it simply seems hard to eliminate. In other cases, the waste is just ridiculous.

There is one example in particular I think warrants recognition. We occasionally purchase shipping supplies from Uline because they offer next day shipping. Every time we order from them they send us a 1 inch thick glossy print catalog with our order. And just in case we lost the catalogs they sent us with our orders they kindly send us another one in the mail. Over the course of 4 months we collected about 50 pounds worth of catalogs from them. We never ordered from the catalog–we always ordered online. (Its almost as bad–if not worse–than the AOL CDs that used to be everywhere.)

We are considering adding a print catalog to our business this year but we are only going to send the hard copy upon specific request and where the customer can not be convinced to accept an electronic version. I also got a lot of other good tips from Ecowriter’s post about green ad materials so we’ll try to minimize our impact there too.

We are going to do what we can to minimize the ad waste that we create but we are also going to look for suitable alternative vendors who make reasonable efforts to do the same.

Presumably anyone reading this article is interested in making environmentally sound decisions and living a low-impact lifestyle. Many of us are willing to make an extra effort, go that extra step to do something that we perceive is better for the environment. But the question that many people are now asking (and we all should be evaluating) is what is the environmental impact of those extra efforts? Is it possible that the efforts we make to be “green” are actually more damaging to the environment to the alternative behavior? And if so, where do we draw the line? Is there some value in the effort itself that mitigates any potential net loss from the perceived green behavior?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue while evaluating our companies’ recycling program and environmental policy. For the most part our programs have worked well and we’ve had a lot of participation within our organization and from our customers. I think a big part of the effort is just getting people in the mindset of looking for ways to conserve resources and produce less waste. However, I think that once an individual or organization has obtained this awareness it is important to shift focus and attention to refining the underlying processes and programs. For example, we are looking at implementing central collection points for our recycling program so the lights do not have to be mailed to us.

I use this example only because it is one that is familiar to me and to illustrate the point that we need to be cautious in evaluating the net impact of our efforts. This is not to say that we should over analysis this matter and waste untold resources trying to determine which option is more green. In some respects I think there is a substantial and immeasurable benefit to fostering a mindset in consumers towards environmental awareness–even if the net benefit is questionable.

We all need to develop an awareness of the impact our lives have on our environment and the cost of gaining this awareness may mean that some of our efforts fall short of a net environmental gain. However, it is important that we do not loose site of the ultimate objective during the development of this new awareness.