Posted Monday, November 26, 2012 --- 11:27 a.m.

Press Release from the City of Madison:

It's holiday recycling time. Madison residents have the chance to recycle cooking oil from their Thanksgiving feast and non working Holiday lights and extension cords at the Streets Division's drop off sites.

"We know that there are many people who have lots of oil left over after frying their Thanksgiving turkey," Madison recycling coordinator George Dreckmann said. "We are very excited to be able to offer them a chance to turn that old cooking oil into fuel for cars and trucks in our area."

Madison residents who wish to recycle their cooking oil must bring it to one of two Streets Division drop off sites. The sites are located at 1501 W. Badger Rd. on the west side and 4602 Sycamore Av. on the east side. Special cooking oil collection tanks are available at both of these locations.

"Every year thousands of gallons of old cooking oil is tossed in the landfill or flushed down the drain. Since we began our cooking oil program we have recovered over thousands of cooking oil" Dreckmann said. "Now we can recover this resource and use it to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and cut air pollution."

Cooking oil must be brought to the 1501 W. Badger Rd. or 4602 Sycamore Av. It should not be taken to the waste oil sites.

"We know that many residents are changing to new energy efficient LED holiday lights and have lots of older light strings they would like to dispose of," Madison recycling coordinator George Dreckmann said. "We are happy to provide them a recycling option for their old lights."

Madison will accept any light strings as well as old extension cords as part of the program. Residents who have older lights with large bulbs are asked to remove those bulbs. There is no need to remove bulbs from strings of mini lights.

"We will recycle all of the old lights through our electronics recycler Cascade Asset Management of Madison," Dreckmann said. "We will have a specially marked electronic collection container at the sites for the lights."

The sites at Badger Rd. and Sycamore Av. will be open this weekend from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Beginning Monday the sites will be open winter hours M-F from 7:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

For more information on the Streets Division's drop off sites visit www.cityofmadison.com/streets.