TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Now that the 2024 election is over, the campaign signs we see everywhere need to be taken down. But getting rid of them could be a challenge, as many recyclers don’t accept them due to the plastic used to make most of the signs.

This is the first year there has been a concentrated effort to collect election signs to keep them out of landfills.

“It’s a community effort,” said Meta Calder, natural resources and clean energy chair for the Tallahassee chapter of the League of Women Voters. “People usually throw them in the trash. And they don’t really fit in the trash and if you put them in the trash, they won’t get recycled.

Calder encourages people to drop off their signs to reuse them in future elections or turn them into clean energy.

“The panels can be recycled and create a form of energy that can be burned in certain types of facilities instead of using coal and stuff like that,” Calder said.

Calder said she notices a difference in the community a week after the election.

“Now I look around and I don’t see any signs anywhere, so I think it’s working,” Calder said.

Signs are collected until Dec. 5, the deadline under state law, candidates must remove their election signs.

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