Minnesota leads nation with Christmas light recycling program

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It’s a familiar scene, one that plays out year after year when the leaves have fallen: you drag out the bundle of Christmas lights from their dust-enshrouded summer tomb, only to discover when you plug them into the wall that the glow is gone. You say you’re going to fiddle with each bulb until you find the culprit, but you never get around to it, and the next time you go shopping you end up buying a new strand of lights anyway, only to throw the dead one into the trash bin.The Recycling Association of Minnesota (RAM), in partnership with Ace Hardware stores, WCCO, Xcel Energy, and Clean Energy Resource Teams, has a better way to dispose of those lights that don’t work. RAM’s statewide project, “Recycle Your Holidays,” allows Minnesota residents to drop off their unwanted holiday lights at more than 400 locations. Businesses can also sign up to become a collection site and receive a free bin and free pickup whenever the bin is full. A map on RAM’s Web site, searchable by city, lists all current collection locations in Minnesota.Ellen Telander, a spokesperson for RAM, said the program is in its third year and grows each holiday season. Continue Reading

Mississippi River facts scarier than Halloween

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On a chilly autumn morning on the banks of the Mississippi River, representatives of three organizations—Environment Minnesota, Clean Water Action-Minnesota, and Sustainable Revolution Project—spoke about the frightening agents polluting Minnesota’s lakes, rivers, ponds, and streams. “Halloween is scary, but our waterways should not be,” said Environment Minnesota’s citizen director Arif Hasan. Environment Minnesota, a statewide, citizen-funded organization, highlighted the most alarming facts about the health of Minnesota’s waters. At the top of the list was the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s 2008 finding that 298 waters in Minnesota are impaired due to mercury pollution from power plants and industrial facilities. A metal known to cause learning disabilities and lower IQs in children, mercury not only taints air and water, but also becomes concentrated in the fish people eat. One of the more distasteful facts on the list addressed fecal coliform, bacteria found in animal and human feces. Continue Reading