It’s time to get efficient.
The City of Lacombe is once again teaming up with Fortis Alberta and holding its Christmas light exchange program designed to reduce Lacombe’s energy footprint and help Lacombe residents save both money and energy.
Guy Lapointe, community and economic development manager for the City of Lacombe, said the City decided to offer such a program after seeing a need for it in the community and seeing success in similar programs from neighbouring communities.
“We wanted to reach out to our residents and provide a service,” said Lapointe. “Really it is about cutting energy costs.”
To participate in the lights exchange program, bring in two strings of old, incandescent bulbs and receive one set of brand new energy-efficient LED lights.
Participants can exchange for as many sets of LED lights as they have adults in their home, but must trade twice as many sets of incandescent bulbs.
Only incandescent bulbs are accepted as part of the exchange, said Lapointe. He added that the program is only open to residents of Lacombe.
Lapointe said that typically, the program is meant for the larger outdoor lights rather than the smaller indoor ones but both kinds of bulbs are accepted.
Last year, during the first year of the exchange, the program saw great success. Lapointe said the City obtained $1,250 worth of LED lights for the program and ran through them in three weeks.
This year, the City has bumped that up to about $2,000 worth of lights, but still expects them to go rather quickly.
As sustainability is the point of the program, the incandescent lights are then recycled. Lapointe said the bulbs are removed and used in art and craft projects like Art in the Park and the wires are used as scrap metal. Last year, the City recycled over 250 strands of incandescent lights.
The program is funded by Fortis Alberta who provides the LED lights to the City at no cost. That means there is no cost to Lacombe taxpayers for the program either.
A portion of the funding also goes to pay for the light display at and around Lacombe Memorial Centre, which is also in its second year.
Lapointe said the City decided to do a lights display at the LMC after its first Light Up The Night event, where some found the light display to be lacking. He added that one person commented a city should have one central light display that stands out as is common in municipalities Lacombe’s size and larger.
For more information about the program, contact Guy Lapointe at 403-782-1263.