Where Christmas Lights Go to Be Re-Born

In Guangdong there’s a small town that specializes in recycling Christmas lights.  They chip the lights into mm sized bits, and then use a modified sluicebox (a vibrating inclined water table) to separate the brass and copper from the glass, plastic and rubber by density.  All of these bits are then re-used in other products.  The entire process would be uneconomical in the US, because our labor is too expensive, and there’s no market here for plastic scrap.

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Zane Selvans

A former space explorer, now marooned on a beautiful, dying world.

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