Get a free set of guitar strings and recycle your old ones at S.M. Hanson Music Saturday
This weekend, a local music store is offering a set of free guitar strings when customers come in to recycle their old ones.
S.M. Hanson Music is ramping up its efforts to help recycle used guitar and orchestra strings by hosting an event May 20 in partnership with D'Addario, a guitar string and musical instrument accessories company, and their PLAYBACK String Recycling Program.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., people can come and receive a set of the new D'Addario XS treated guitar strings. S.M. Hanson Music staff will restring the guitar for the customers at the store location, 335 South Clark Street in Salina.
The special promotion is available for six-string electric and acoustic steel string instruments and is limited to one guitar per customer.
Why recycle guitar and orchestra strings?
It is estimated that more than 1.5 million pounds of instrument string metal could be put into landfills every year.
The PLAYBACK String Recycling Program came about when D'Addario partnered with a company named TerraCycle to come up with a better solution than just throwing away guitar and orchestra strings.
CEO and President Rick Hanson said he found the idea to recycle guitar strings unique and wanted to help be a part of that cause.
"It saves us from having to throw them away and it keeps the strings out of the landfill," Hanson said.
TerraCycle provides S.M. Hanson with a collection box for the strings and when it gets full, the box is shipped to the recycling company. Both nylon and steel strings are collected and can be recycled.
The metal strings are melted down into new metal alloys and the nylon strings are recycled into industrial plastic applications.
The string recycling program began in 2019, and S.M. Hanson Music has been participating shortly after it took off.
Recycle your strings at S.M. Hanson Music year-round
S.M. Hanson recently sent 48 pounds of guitar strings to TerraCycle from its collection box to be recycled. Hanson said they typically send around 50 pounds of guitar strings every few months to be recycled.
"If it's convenient to recycle, I think more people would do that," Hanson said. "So, we kind of make it easy this way. And every instrument that gets strings in the shop, it's convenient for us to just walk around the corner and drop them in the box."
Customers can come into the store at any time to recycle their old strings at no cost.
Kendrick Calfee has been a reporter with the Salina Journal since 2022, primarily covering county government and education. You can reach him at kcalfee@gannett.com or on Twitter @calfee_kc.
This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: S.M. Hanson partners with guitar string company to recycle strings
