Cast Your Vote for Recycling

This week’s election may have divided us as a nation, but there’s one thing on which most would agree:  we need to do a better job of recycling.

Thankfully, there’s a day for that. America Recycles Day, turning 15 on November 15, may not rank up there in the public consciousness with major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but an estimated 2 million people will celebrate it at public events ranging from electronics collections to a recycled art show. Though many of the events will be fun, there’s a serious side to recycling that should not be overlooked.

• Recycling creates jobs. Millions of Americans are employed by companies that recycle, but consider this fact: much of the recycling effort cannot happen without public participation. The simple act of recycling and buying recycled products can create the momentum that builds materials markets and fills the supply chain of recycled materials that can help fuel our economy.  
• Recycling makes a huge difference in our communities. There are some interesting stats out there. For example, the number of cans recycled every 30 seconds equals the number of people who could fill an entire pro football stadium. Recycling just one aluminum can saves the energy equivalent of powering a 46-inch LED TV for 3 hours.  A glass container can go from the recycling bin to a store shelf in as few as 30 days. The list goes on and on. 
• Recycling is not that difficult. It just takes basic knowledge and a sincere commitment to become an active, effective participant.

 “Command central” for America Recycles Day is this website. It’s where you can register your recycling event, find a local event to attend or at the very least, make a deeper commitment to sustainability. The site offers a Recycling Locator by category, a cool way to reduce the number of unwanted catalogues you receive in the mail, and other goodies.

Most importantly, recycling is not, and cannot, be a one-day event. It requires a 24/7/365 effort by all of us to find the best ways to recycle, reuse and reclaim.

How Light Bulbs Can Save you Money

We still come across a lot of people, and businesses, who aren’t sold on making the switch from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescents or LEDs. When comparing the price tag on an incandescent bulb to a fluorescent or LED option, most of us instantly think it’s the cheapest option. Think again!

For most of us, switching from incandescent bulbs to CFLs will save a good chunk of money. Lighting accounts for roughly 20 percent of the electric bill in the average U.S. home or office.

Incandescent bulbs have a typical lifespan of 750 to 1,000 hours. An equivalent CFL can last between 6,000 and 10,000 hours. If you do the math, that means for every one CFL you buy you would need to buy nearly 10 incandescent bulbs. Those savings, coupled with the reduced energy consumption, will save you a lot of money. In fact, some CFLs can cut the lighting portion of your energy bill by approximately 75 percent!

If you’re still not sold, take a second to think about this amazing fact. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, if every U.S. household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road.

Comparisons between Traditional Incandescent
and Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs*

	60W Traditional Incandescent	43W Energy-Saving Incandescent	15W CFL	12W LED
Energy $ Saved (%)	–	~25%	~75%	~75-80%
Annual Energy Cost*	$4.80	$3.50	$1.20	$1.00
Bulb Life	1000 hours	1000 to 3000 hours	10,000 hours	25,000 hours

Be on the lookout for LEDs to take off soon as well. The initial cost is still a little too high for most people. Once the cost of the lamps goes down, however, they will be saving all of us a lot of money. I’m sure everyone likes the sound of that.

If you want to get a better estimate of how much you can save by making the switch to fluorescent bulbs, check out this really cool light bulb savings calculator.

*Table is from www.energysavers.gov

An Inside Look at the Fluorescent Lamp Recycling Process

We are often asked if the lamps we sell are made out of the lamps we recycle.  It is a great question and makes us realize that our customers want to know how fluorescent lamps actually get recycled.  Here is an inside look at what EverLights does with your bulbs.

EverLights believes in a zero landfill recycling process and we recycle the lamps using the most efficient and clean lamp recycling machine in the industry.  Our recycling technology can process up to 5,000 linear fluorescent lamps every hour. The machine sucks in the lamps and sends them through a crushing/filtering process that separates the lamps into four reusable products:  glass, aluminum end caps, phosphor powder, and mercury.  This crushing, filtering and cleaning process all happens inside the machine, reducing any chance of mercury contamination in the facility.

Once the lamp is recycled to this state, the four products are distributed to various industries for reuse in manufacturing.  The phosphorous powder and mercury goes back to the lighting industry and the glass and aluminum end caps go into fiber glass insulation and new aluminum products.

If you still want to learn more about the lamp recycling process and the machine itself, take a moment to watch this video from the manufacturer.

Happy 4th of July From EverLights

Happy 4th of July from your friends at EverLights. Have a safe and wonderful holiday!

EverLights and Alderman John Pope Hold Free E-Waste Recycling Drive

Every May, Alderman John Pope leads his 10^th ward with a handful of green events around the community to encourage residents to go green and help keep our community clean. For three years, we have helped Alderman Pope achieve this goal by offering free electronics recycling to local residents and businesses for the entire month.

During his 13 years as Alderman of Chicago’s 10th ward, Pope has been known for his green initiatives and strong belief in creating a sustainable community. “Our annual green events are important because they help us educate community residents about sustainability programs that we feel are really important,” said Pope. “Residents have had a tremendous response to these programs over the last five years and we’re excited to see how we can make it an even bigger success in the years to come.”

EverLights Team With Alderman John A. Pope

We are happy to announce that the drive has once again been a great success. Thanks to the help of the employees at the Alderman’s office, and the efforts by both parties to spread the word about the drive, we were able to collect nearly 1,400 pounds of e-waste.

Although the month-long e-waste recycling drive has now come to a close, we want to remind all of our community residents that we offer free e-waste recycling at our location in Chicago year-round. Residents are allowed to bring up to 10 pieces of electronic equipment to be recycled at no cost to them. Our recycling process includes data and hard drive destruction, plus 100% recycling.  For more information, call our office at (877) 934-9873.

EverLights Now Sells GE Energy-Efficient Products

Recycling lamps – and doing it well – has been a passion for EverLights since we opened in 1995.  We have found the greatest joy in servicing our clients, especially when we can offer them a program or product that helps them become more efficient, green and truly help them do their job better.

Earlier this year, a number of our clients started to ask us our opinion on the incandescent and fluorescent bulb phase outs.  We educated them and gave resources to the best of our ability.  But we wondered if there was a way we could do more.  After putting our heads together, we decided to approach General Electric to see if they would be willing to bring EverLights on as a lamp distributor.  We were thrilled when they said yes!  By the end of the month, EverLights will become the first GE distributor that also recycles their products.  Did I mention how excited we are?

As we prepare for the official launch date (please stay tuned) all of us are busy learning more about lighting so we can be the EverLights experts that you are accustomed to working with. We want our customers to know that they can come to us for all of their lighting and recycling needs, and learning as much as we can about the industry is the best way to make that happen. Soon you’ll start to see new lighting added to quotes, and we’ll run specials on bulbs that we think are particularly efficient, or just plain cool.

If you’re interested in learning more about the GE products we’ll be offering, or our recycling services, please give us a call anytime at (877) 934-9873. We’re always happy to help!

5 Ways to Reduce Your Annual Energy Costs

Saving money is always on the mind of business owners. At the same time, most companies are invested in environmental programs on some level. Whether it’s as simple as recycling paper in the office, or as involved as a complete office overhaul. Here are a 5 things your company can do to go green and reduce annual energy costs.

Turn Off Computers When They’re not in Use

Leaving a computer on doesn’t seem like it’s an expensive thing to do when you look at it on a daily basis. On average, Americans pay $.10 per kilowatt hour (kWh). The average desktop computer uses roughly 200 watts per hour. One kilowatt consists of 200 watts. If you do the math, it comes out to cost about $.02 per hour when your computer is on (this can vary based on where you live). That doesn’t sound like much, I agree. But when you add up the total over an entire year, it comes out to about $175 in energy expenses, per computer, if you leave your computer running 24 hours a day. There are a lot of people who leave their computers on when they leave for the night, and that can add up quickly. Leaving computers on can also warm up your office, causing the cost of air conditioning to rise during warmer months.

Courtesy of thedailygreen.com

Use Power Strips to Cut the Cost of Plug Loads by Up to 50%

Everything in your office that is plugged in, which we’ll refer to as “plug load” from now on, makes up 15-20% of your average monthly energy bill. As you read above, one work space can cost a company $175 over the course of a year. Power strips provide another way to cut the costs of computer and electronics usage.

When you first read that one work station can cost a company $175 per year in energy, you may have thought something along the lines of, “$175 isn’t a lot of money, why should I worry about that so much?” Some more simple math should answer that question for you. Say there are 25 employees at your company. That comes out to be an energy cost of $4,375 for the entire office. If you can cut the cost of plug loads by 50%, you’re down to only $2,100. That $2,000 your business is saving could mean more resources for you, an office party, or maybe even a little extra on your Christmas bonus.

Improve Your Heating and Cooling Systems

Retrofitting your heating-and-cooling systems can reduce your building’s energy consumption by as much as 40 percent, because many older systems are too big and inefficient. Opt for a newer unit that is just as powerful (if not more so), and more compact. These more powerful units also use less power, which gives you another way to cut down on energy costs.

Take Advantage of Tax Credits

The federal stimulus package created and extended tax incentives for green initiatives, such as a 30 percent investment tax credit for renewable-energy systems. Each state also has specific tax credits available, on top of those that are offered by the federal government. Incentives specific to the state of Illinois can be found here.

Perform a Lighting Retrofit

Lighting retrofits can save a company a great deal of money. Read our article on this topic for more information.

Sources:

http://www.inc.com/ss/9-ways-cut-energy-costs#0

http://dsireusa.org/incentives/index.cfm?getRE=1?re=undefined&ee=1&spv=0&st=0&srp=1&state=IL

How to Recycle Your E-Waste

Here’s the situation. You’ve read our previous posts about e-waste recycling, or heard about the new laws from other sources, and you decided it’s time to get serious about recycling your old electronics. Now the question is, how do you do it?

Well you’re in luck, because we have all the answers to your problems.

One of the many services EverLights offers to its customers is e-waste recycling. That should come as no surprise, considering how much we talk about it. We strive to make this entire process as easy on our customers as possible. This starts from the very beginning when a new call comes in asking about recycling and lasts the entire duration of the project.

We offer three easy to use recycling options for e-waste, all of which can be used by any of our customers.

Bulk Pickups 

EverLights will come to your location, whether it is a warehouse, office building or any other job site to pick up your old electronic equipment. In order to make the pickup go as smoothly as possible, we can bring packaging to your facility a few days beforehand. By doing this, we are able to expedite the process the day of the pickup, saving you time and money.

Pickups are usually recommended for businesses with large amounts of e-waste. We will also work with you to recycle your lamps, ballasts and batteries at the same time, if you choose to do so. This makes pickups more worthwhile and can save your business money.

Mail-In Recycling Program

Our mail-in recycling program, EverMail, isn’t just for lamps and batteries. You can use it to recycle e-waste too! It works the same way as our other options. Simply order one of the e-waste recycling boxes, put your equipment inside and send it back to us. Everything is covered in the initial cost of the box, so you don’t have to worry about any extra fees later on. This is the most cost-effective and efficient option for businesses that only have a few pieces of equipment to recycle.

Click to Order!

On-Site Drop-off

This is exactly what it sounds like. The final option we offer is an on-site drop-off. This is available to any business, regardless of size, and is often the easiest way to recycle. Simply bring your e-waste to our warehouse. We’ll help you unload the equipment, weigh it and send you on your way (once you’ve paid, of course). It really is that easy.

Want more information about e-waste recycling? Check out some of our previous blog posts or read our e-waste recycling green paper. There is a lot of great information in them, so make sure you check them out.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share. We’d love to hear your feedback!

What is a Mail-In Recycling Program?

A lot of businesses don’t go through lamps very quickly. Smaller locations use less, so naturally they have less to recycle. The easiest thing to do would be toss the lamps in the garbage with everything else, right? Wrong. There are better solutions than putting yourself (you can be charged up to $25,000) and others at risk. The best option for businesses that don’t use a lot of lamps is a recycling pak program. What is that, you ask?

Simply put, a recycling pak program is an easy, convenient way for businesses to recycle their lamps, ballast, batteries and even mercury. A lot of recycling companies offer mail-in services as a way for those who don’t go through a lot of these items to store and recycle them without much hassle. We call ours “EverMail,” but pak programs all serve the same purpose.

Pak programs work as follows:

1. Go online or call the recycling company to order boxes or pails
2. Fill the boxes or pails as needed
3. When your box or pail is full, fill out the shipping information, seal it, and send it back to the recycling company
4. Once your items have been processed you’ll be sent a Certificate of Recycling

These programs are ideal for retail, large and small corporations, sites with limited storage space, and de-centralized locations that generate minimal amounts of universal waste. The price of our EverMail program includes the cost of the box, shipping to and from EverLights, recycling fees and the certificate of recycling.

Click to Order EverMail Recycling Products

Next time you’re replacing lamps in your office or building, think about the options you have for getting rid of them, and make sure you put “throw them out” at the bottom of the list. If you don’t think using a pak program is your best option, you can also drop them off at, or call to have them picked up by, a number of places, including EverLights.

The Top 5 Green News Stories of the Week (12/29 – 1/5)

With the start of a new year often comes a lot of groundbreaking news stories. During the last week, we’ve seen new laws take effect, countless “best of 2011″ lists and some incredible pictures from celebrations around the world. It wasn’t easy, but we were able to choose our 5 favorite stories from the past week to share with you.

1. New E-Waste Recycling Laws Take Effect

To an e-waste recycling company, like EverLights, this could be considered the most important news story of the entire year, and it’s only January. Starting January 1, a new law went into effect changing the e-waste recycling standards that were already in place. Included in this new law are higher penalties for failure to comply (up from $1,000 to $7,000), and a longer list of equipment that needs to be recycled. Now, more than ever, it is important for business owners and building managers to understand these laws.

EverLights can help you figure out how to handle your e-waste, and offers solutions that make your job as easy as possible.

2. Waste & Recycling News’ Top Stories of 2011

This is actually 10 stories in one. Since it’s the first week of the year, we thought it would be more valuable to share an article with the 10 best stories of 2011, rather than showing you one recent story. Waste & Recycling News put together a quick recap of its 10 best stories of 2011 and compiled them into this great list. In our opinion, each story on this list belongs there. Take a look at #7, for example. See any similarities to the article and this post?

3. The Top 25 Alternative Energy Moves of 2011

Lists are great, aren’t they? They’re easy to navigate, and you can pick and choose what you want to read, saving you time. That’s why we decided to put another list on our list.

This time, it’s, “The Top 25 Alternative Energy Moves of 2011.” We’re in the lamp recycling business, so most of these don’t fall into our area of expertise, but they’re still great stories you should all know about. Organizations like Google, Facebook and NASA are sure to grab a lot of peoples’ attention, but read the entire list. You might learn something you didn’t know.

4. Incandescent Light Bulb Ban Put on Hold

This story wasn’t published within the last week, but since we didn’t do a “top 5″ last week, we thought it would be fair to include it. It is, after all, one of the biggest news stories about the lighting industry.

When President Obama signed the recent spending bill to avert a government shutdown, he put the phase-out of incandescent bulbs on hold (sort of). The bill doesn’t end the incandescent ban, but instead states that no money can be allocated to enforce the law. This hasn’t stopped businesses from pulling the bulbs from their shelves, however. Plenty of stores around the country have gotten a head start on the ban, and most manufacturers have ended production of the 100-watt bulbs. If you’re a fan of this old, outdated technology, enjoy it while it lasts. It won’t be long before the bulbs are gone for good.

5. New Year Celebrations Around the World

It’s alright to include a story that isn’t “green,” right? We think so. Especially when the story involves incredible photographs.

In case you missed it, new years eve was this past weekend. People around the world celebrate in different ways, with traditions that are unique to their cultures and families. The Big Picture, Boston.com’s photography section, recently posted pictures of new years celebrations around the world. We think these pictures are amazing, so what better time than now to share them with you? We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

(Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press)

If you have any questions or comments about the stories listed, please leave us a comment. We’d love to hear what you have to say!

As always, feel free to contact us with any recycling questions you might have. We’re always happy to help!