Copper content
How much copper is in Christmas lights?
About 20% of its weight is recoverable copper. Here's what that means for stripping, grading, and what your yard will pay.
What Christmas lights is
Also sold or searched as holiday string lights, mini-light strings. Published figures range 5–30% — hair-thin conductors, sockets, and bulbs eat the weight. Never worth stripping; sell by the pound as-is.
How much copper is inside
The copper recovery rate is the share of a cable's total weight that is actual copper once the insulation and jacket are stripped away. For Christmas lights that's about 20%, and typically anywhere from 15% to 25% depending on gauge, age, and condition.
In round numbers: 100 lb of Christmas lights yields roughly 20 lb of bare copper. At an example #1 copper price of $3.90/lb that's about $78 of copper — but prices swing by region and by the week, so run it with the number your own yard pays.
Open the Copper Wire Yield calculator, pick "Christmas lights" (or type your own recovery %), and enter your local prices to see the stripped-vs-as-is breakdown for your exact load.
Strip it or sell it as-is?
Verdict for Christmas lights: not worth stripping — sell as-is by the pound. Stripping only pays when the gap between the bare-copper price and the as-is (insulated) price beats the time it takes — and that gap scales with the recovery rate. At 20%, there is too little copper — and too much fiddly insulation — for hand-stripping to be worth the hours. Sell it by the pound.
To put a dollar figure on your own time, run it through the Strip or Sell calculator, which adds an hourly rate to the raw copper math.
How Christmas lights compares to other cable
Where Christmas lights sits against every other common cable type (its row is marked):
| Cable type | Recovery | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| MCM / feeder cable (250 MCM+) | ~88% | 85–94% |
| THHN — heavy gauge (4 AWG to 4/0) | ~84% | 80–90% |
| THHN — standard (8–16 AWG) | ~80% | 75–88% |
| Double-insulated power wire | ~75% | 70–80% |
| Romex / NM-B (indoor solid) | ~65% | 62–70% |
| Mixed #2 insulated wire | ~60% | 55–69% |
| AC / appliance whip wire | ~55% | 50–60% |
| Extension cords / SJ cord | ~42% | 35–48% |
| Cat5/Cat6 — solid bulk runs | ~42% | 35–50% |
| Cat5/Cat6 patch cords (stranded) | ~22% | 18–28% |
| MC/BX armored cable (copper inside) | ~30% | 25–35% |
| Christmas lights ← this page | ~20% | 15–25% |
Sources
- iScrap App: low-grade category
- Community reports range 5–30%; default kept conservative
Recovery figures are cross-checked against at least two published yard references and kept at the conservative end of each range, so surprises land in your favor. Measuring a stripped sample of your own cable always beats a table.
Christmas lights: quick answers
How much copper is in Christmas lights?
About 20% of its weight — usually 15–25% depending on gauge and condition. So 100 lb of Christmas lights yields roughly 20 lb of bare copper once stripped.
Is Christmas lights worth stripping?
Not worth stripping — sell as-is by the pound. At a ~20% recovery rate, stripping rarely beats just selling it as-is by the pound. Run your own prices through the Strip or Sell calculator to be sure.
What copper grade does Christmas lights sell as?
Own low-grade category at most yards. Yards buy insulated wire as-is at a discounted "ICW" rate that already assumes an average recovery; stripping clean copper moves it up to a higher-paying bare-copper grade.
Price your own wire
Enter your yard's prices and see stripped vs as-is for this exact cable.