Effective September 2026, the REAL Deal is accepting used light bulbs for recycling.  Bulbs brought to our store will be picked up by  Productcare Recycling  and taken to facilities for recycling.   REAL will earn a small amount per bulb collected.  

What is Accepted.  Pretty much any type of  lightbulb is acceptable.  End of life CFLs, LEDs, fluorescent tubs, incandescent, halogen, miniature bulbs, UV and germicidal bulbs, projector lamps and special purpose bulbs are acceptable.  (See chart below).   

What is Not Accepted.  We cannot take smoke alarms, ballasts or streetlights.   While string lights are not accepted in this program, we can accept them with our ewaste.  Do not include any light fixtures in the lightbulb bin, either.   The REAL Deal accepts used lighting fixtures, but they will need to be separated into cords, fixtures, shades and bulbs by our staff.  So the bulbs will make it into recycling eventually.  Please do not bring us broken bulbs.

What to Do.  Please deposit your bulbs in the blue bin near the customer entrance.  This is the same location where people are depositing their batteries, print and toner cartridges, milk bags and writing instruments.  If you have fluorescent tubes, please bring them to our attention and we will store somewhere else until pickup time.  

What Happens to the Bulbs Collected.  Once collected the bulbs are sorted by type and then broken into their components.  The metal is sent to smelters and the glass to dedicated glass recyclers.

Free Light Bulbs.  The REAL Deal will continue to offer free lightbulbs in the dome.  Generally these are packaged bulbs so you will know exactly what type and intensity you are getting and that they are unused.  Unmarked bulbs will probably end up in bulb recycling unless we can determine that they work.