Creating a circular economy with LED streetlight upgrades

 Our Streetlight LED Upgrade Program is 98.4% complete, and 95% of the non-glass cobra head materials from over 77,000 streetlights and 6,000 decorative lighting fixtures are being diverted from the landfill thanks to the Binghampton Development Corporation's (BDC) Business Hub warehouse-based job training program!

 BDC has been working for twenty years to improve housing in the Binghampton neighborhood while also providing workforce training for residents. The median household income in Binghampton is $21,000 and 45% of households do not receive any earned income.

 The BDC Business Hub is actively and intentionally preparing employees for a living wage career. Andy Kizzee, BDC Business Hub Director, says, “Our goal is to create a new first rung on the ladder and then incentivize people to want to move on.”

 They focused on construction skills for fourteen years, but after Power & Tel donated their 82,000 sq. ft. warehouse facility to the organization, BDC quickly pivoted to warehouse based training. The BDC Business Hub offers low entry requirements, a flexible schedule, and a $12/hour starting pay. The six months of training includes soft skills (i.e. financial planning, communication, workplace culture) and hard skills (i.e. forklift operation).

The BDC Business Hub offers a range of recycling services for materials that are currently difficult or impossible to recycle in Memphis including mattresses, tires, styrofoam, and light fixtures.

 Over the past year, 58 employees have been hired to dismantle the old MLGW cobra head streetlights and separate out the copper, steel and aluminum to be sold and/or recycled, thus creating a circular economy.

While the MLGW LED project is winding down, the BDC Business Hub’s role is ramping up. They will perform the same service for the LED upgrades happening in Bartlett and Collierville as well as Nashville Electric Service (NES).