American Made Christmas lights vs. Chinese Made Christmas lights [View all]

[DonRedwood]

Our house is THAT house at Christmas.

I don't go nuts and have a giant light show or anything crazy, but our house is certainly the most lit on our block. (ok...for several blocks). This is my rational: lights are a "Happy Holidays!!!" for everyone who sees them. The human race needs more friendliness. I refuse to not put up lights and, honestly, I think they are pretty and I like them.

I have four storage tubs of lights. Two of those tubs are lights from the 50s-60s and have been a constant source of inner debate and turmoil. I call those the cadillacs of lights. Big honking C-9 bulbs that can tack $75 on the December electric bill if I'm not careful. Each year I buy a few strands of LED lights but I can only afford a string or two each year.

I love the earth. I don't waste much. I recycle EVERYTHING. I use natural fertilizers and no poisons. I plant my yard to be a haven for bugs and birds. My energy comes from wind power (even though that costs more). I try to turn off lights, use less power and we use public transportation for almost all of our work commuting (when possible).

So big honking C-9 Christmas lights are everything I don't like. Wasteful. They don't serve a true purpose. With the creation of LED lights I have made an effort to move away from the old sets completely.

Two years ago I bought two strands of LEDs. Last year I bought three. This year Home Depot had a coupon to exchange old lights for $3 off an LED set. I went for it and took in 8 sets of old lights and bought 8 new strands of lights. All of these new LED lights use less power and should be better for the earth. All of the LEDs were made in China. But, I was VERY excited to have all these new lights. I even splurged and bought an extra nice set of Martha Stewart lights.

Then I went to town on my yard. But, bad news when I plugged in some of the lights...both of the two year old LEDs didn't work. I went to the store and got fuses. No go. One of the three sets of LEDs I bought last year was also dead. New fuses didn't help. So...of the five sets I bought in the last two years, 3 are dead.

Of the 8 LED sets I bought this year (all from China)--four of them stopped working by New Years. The fancy set from Martha Stewart that cost double the other sets was also dead. I've fiddled with them and replaced the fuses. Nothing. We've had no snow, no freezing weather and very little wind. For a Christmas light, this has been a very very easy year.

I ended up getting out the Cadillacs. Those big honking American made bulbs and light sets that came from my parents and from several garage and estate sales. Even my bulbs are from the 50s--those deep colored bulbs that glow so richly. (They are called Interior C-9s because the color was spray enamel on the inside then baked to keep the color--today they just spray some color on the outside of the bulb and it flakes off sooner than later). I strung them down the fence and filled in where the LEDs died. Because they were on a different power strip they ended up staying on overnight pretty much all of December. I'll fess up and admit they were on quite a few days too when I forgot to run out and unplug them when leaving for work.

So here's how the 60 year-old lights AND lightbulbs fared. Four green lightbulbs burned out. All the sets still work even though they were on at least double, if not triple, the amount of time as the LED sets. Just four lightbulbs to replace. Only four dead bulbs going to the landfill.

So what ends up being worse for the earth? The old sets of lights with the big bulbs that are wasteful of my (wind-generated) electricity or buying LED lights that are made of questionable plastics, questionable metals, questionable labor (I want good energy happy worker lights not bad energy slave labor political prisoner lights) and then shipped halfway around the world only to have them be dead in a year leaving me in need of a new set of bad plastic, bad metal, bad energy lights shipped over from China. The packaging alone for the LED lights included a box, plastic bag, two metal and plastic twist ties, small plastic bag and staple for spare bulbs and fuses. I recycled it but in many places it is just garbage.

I think I will be sticking to my American Made dinosaurs and wait for a time, hopefully, when American industry decides that the market has a need for quality American Made products again. You hear that businessworld? Some of us would rather pay $15 for an American made set of lights that work rather than their $8 Chinese counterpart that will be in our landfilll next January. You might not make as much money selling quality, but the Earth cannot afford all the garbage your crappy products are creating.

Until then, a shiny, happy new year to you all. Go buy something made in America.
(and, no, this is not my house!)