Are you still decorating your yard and home with incandescent holiday lights? The St. Louis County Health Department says it is time to make the switch to LED lights. Often, strings of incandescent lights are wrapped in a hard plastic coating of PVC to protect the wire. This coating can take up to 500 years to breakdown in our landfills. Furthermore, PVC is heat resistant and may contain metals such as tin, lead and cadmium which can become harmful once they make it into the ground.

Using LED lights for you holiday decorating and light displays has plenty of benefits. Consider the following facts about LED lighting:

·         LED lights last twice as long as incandescent lights – up to 20 years!

·         They use 1/10^th of the energy of traditional holiday mini-lights, which saves on your electric bill.

·         LEDs are cool to the touch reducing the risk of fire.

·         Their brightness does not fade over time.

·         LED lights are durable and harder to break than traditional lights.

·         They can withstand moisture, heat and cold.

·         LEDs are available at most hardware stores and home improvement centers.

Before you throw away those strands of incandescent Christmas lights, check with you local hardware or home improvement stores to see if any are sponsoring a collection/recycling mission for broken or non-functioning incandescent holiday lights. Some places even offer discounts on the purchase of new energy-efficient LED Christmas lights for each strand of old lights you recycle. 

So, go ahead and make the switch to LED Christmas lights. You’ll save energy, have a more environmentally-friendly holiday light display and save money on your electric bill.

This article brought to you by The HousePlanShop, LLC, the home of the best selling house plans from the best designers!

Tags: Christmas, Christmas lights, holiday desorating, holiday lights, LED lights, recycle