Music World’s String Swap: A Successful Effort to Reduce Waste in the Guitar Community”.

Music World, a well-known music store in Hazel Dell, has recently launched an initiative to recycle old guitar strings. The co-owner and general manager of the store, Matt Gohlke, realized the impact of discarding instrument strings and collaborated with TerraCycle and guitar string manufacturer D’Addario to organize string exchange events at the store.

Before this recycling program, recycling old strings was not a priority for Gohlke or others in the community. However, with the help of TerraCycle and D’Addario, Music World hosted its third annual string exchange event on Earth Day. During the event, D’Addario provided 40 sets of strings while Music World replaced them with new ones. TerraCycle then recycled the old strings that were collected.

The cost of restringing an instrument is usually $40, but this event not only benefited the community but also raised awareness about recycling guitar strings. Even though this year’s event has passed, Music World will continue to accept and recycle old music strings year-round.

One customer who took advantage of this promotion was Derek Neiman, a longtime customer of Music World. Neiman usually restrings his instruments himself but decided to have his guitar restrung at the store during the promotion. He praised Music World for always doing a great job. Photographer Taylor Balkom also contributed to this story by capturing images of the event.