I know, I know, it’s way too early to be thinking about Christmas and the holidays, I mean, we haven’t even had Halloween yet, but as I was doing some research for another article to be posted in a few weeks time I came across Toronto Hydro’s “Festive Light Exchange” program. This is a great program that helps take lots of energy-sucking incandescent Christmas lights off the grid in exchange for super energy efficient LED lights (an entire 25 light strand uses only 1.8 Watts of electricity).
If you are planning on updating your holiday lighting selection, LED is the way to go; the lights consume so much less electricity (approximately 95% less than an incandescent strand to be exact) it’s incredible. Toronto Hydro has a great information page on the cost savings and fire hazard reasons for switching to LED bulbs.
To encourage you to change your lights, Toronto Hydro has a “Festive Light Exchange” program they’ve been running for the past few years. The first one is October 25th, at the Gerrard India Bazaar BIA
N/W Corner of Gerrard and Ashdale Rd at the library from 6:00 – 8:00 pm — which is why I felt the need for this post at this time.
For a complete list of program exchange dates, times and places, go to Toronto Hydro’s website.
If you’re wondering if switching to LED lights makes a difference, in 2006 over 24,185 light strands were taken off the grid, avoiding over 1500 tonnes of CO2 output.