Nothing is more frustrating than decking out your place with decorative lights only to find that several bulbs or the whole string doesn’t work.

This year will be Elgin Recycling’s Third Annual Holiday Lights Recycling Program, and the DeKalb County Health Department, 2550 N. Annie Glidden Road, has partnered with it for the first time. Residents can drop off unwanted holiday lights at several locations in DeKalb and Sycamore.

“It’s brand new [for DeKalb County] and we have eight locations where residents can drop off Christmas lights that they don’t want,” said Christel Springmire, DeKalb County Health Department Solid Waste and Recycling coordinator. “Even if the lights are still working, we still take them.”

Springmire said last year, she had to throw away three strings of malfunctioning holiday lights. Springmire also said she knew there had to be a way to recycle them. That was when she discovered Elgin Recycling.

In order to recycle the holiday lights, recyclers melt off the plastic to get to the metal inside, Springmire said.

Junior psychology major Nicole Zawacki said she wishes she knew earlier there was a way to recycle her unwanted lights.

“We had a whole box of Christmas lights and put them all around the tree,” Zawacki said. “It was a big tree, like nine feet. Then none of them worked. They were all dead. We just threw them away. I didn’t think there was a way to recycle lights. There were a lot of lights, at least five or six hundred strands.”

Residents can also submit other types of lights, including C7 and C9 lights, rope lights, LED lights, and extension cords. Springmire said regular light bulbs are not accepted, however.

The program runs until Jan. 1. Springmire also said the program helps save landfill space in garbage dumps.

“We only have a certain amount of space in the garbage dumps,” Springmire said. “If it gets taken up with things that can be recycled, that’s poor handling. We want to recycle as much as possible.”