How to Ridwell: Maximizing your bin
Hey, what’s in that bin?
It’s a question you may hear pretty often if you have a Ridwell bin by your door. Ridwell members tell us that they love to talk about how their household has committed to wasting less, but they aren’t always sure how to describe how much the bin can hold, and would love more advice about how to best use the space.
We designed our bins to fit on a broad variety of doorsteps, but also to ensure that we can keep the cost of our service as low as possible for our members. Having a standard bin size plus an option for members to add-on additional materials lets us best plan our drivers’ routes and what size vehicles to send.
Most of our routes are completed using small cars. Volumes outside the bin means we need to send bigger/commercial vehicles.
Efficiently carpooling collection is a big part of how we reduce the carbon footprint (and time) required to do the right thing with recyclable and reusable things.
Here are a few ideas for maximizing your own waste reduction with your Ridwell bin:
Tip 1
If it fits in your Ridwell canvas bags and/or bin, it’s included in your normal pick-up
We’ve provided reusable canvas bags to sort the materials you want us to pick-up, but if you have extra plastic film or threads, for example, we will still grab them at no additional charge as long as they fit comfortably in your bin. Just place them inside a plastic or paper bag (we’ll make sure those are recycled too!) and tuck them in your bin. So if you aren’t a big battery user but find your plastic film bag overflowing each month, feel free to adjust your bin contents accordingly.
Similarly, if all your items for pick-up fit within your canvas Ridwell bags, but not all inside the bin at the same time, you are welcome to leave the Ridwell bags that don’t fit next to your bin. As long as the items are in our canvas Ridwell bags we will grab them for no additional fee.
Tip 2
Featured categories are special (as they like to remind us)
Most of our featured categories will fit in the canvas bag we provide and should go in your bin if possible (see Tip 1), but there are certainly some that are more difficult to fit (like puffy winter coats, large packs of diapers, or bulky non-perishable food).
If you’re ever having trouble fitting featured category items into the bag, or if you happen to have a large amount of a “small” category like corks, you can place what doesn’t fit in your Ridwell bag into a separate bag and add it on as Beyond the Bin for free! You can find more info on how to add featured category Beyond the Bin bags onto a pickup here.
Tip 3
Spread the Ridwell love (and bin space)
We get asked all the time whether we can set up a “shared” subscription for neighbors or family members who don’t expect to fill their bin by themselves every 2 weeks. We don’t have a way to split a subscription on our end, but if you have extra space in your bin for a particular pick-up and want to offer the room to a friend that’s fine by us! We’re on a mission to help everyone live with less waste - if we are heading to your door anyway we’d love to maximize what we can take care of for you.
Tip 4
Plan ahead for Beyond the Bin and add-on pick-ups
If you are like us, the styrofoam brought into the house from holiday shipping was a bit...well...overwhelming. The styrofoam bags we provide every member are pretty big (45 gallons)! If you expect another big round of deliveries (or use a home grocery service or the like), make sure you have your orange bag ready and fill it completely before requesting a pick-up.
If you need us to take extra volumes of our core categories that don’t fit in your cloth bags and bin we charge $1 per bag - regardless of the size (up to 30 gallons)! Feel free to use the biggest (recyclable please!) bag you have on hand. We need to know in advance if you will have bags Beyond the Bin - you can add up to 5 to each pick-up, just let us know when you opt-in on your Ridwell dashboard.