AIM Ecycling sets out bins at all Genoa Bank locations to recycle old Christmas lights

TOLEDO, Ohio — Jeff Norden and his company AIM Ecycling paired with all Genoa Bank locations in the area to create a place that residents can drop off their old Christmas lights to be recycled free of charge.

Electronic Christmas decorations contain substances like lead and mercury that could hurt the environment if thrown away in a landfill.

"Keeping these out of landfills and making people aware that those are electronic and there is heavy metals in there, we can do our little bit to keep that out of the landfills and keep that out of our waterways," Norden said.

This year, the company made their holiday goal to find a safe solution.

"Everybody was like, 'We have more lights to get rid of, so how do we do that?' We're the solution for them. ... Basically they're going to get sent to a company. They're going to chop everything up. They're going to recover the copper and the plastics and everything will be reused then again."

Norden shared that their first pickup of lights on Monroe Street weighed 150 pounds and he estimates their grand total can near one ton.

"My experience in this business in the last couple years has been there's just a lot of people that don't know what to do with a lot of their electronics, let alone the Christmas lights," said Brian Simmons, director of operations. "Certainly this time of year if you've got old Christmas lights, bring them to our location, take them to Genoa Bank and we're happy to make sure that those stay out of the landfill."

There's still plenty of time to drop any of your old lights in the Genoa Bank boxes since they'll be up at all the bank locations until Jan. 14.