A future without waste starts with you
The Ridwell community embraces a creative approach to solve a big problem: the status quo can’t keep up with the waste piling up in our landfills and oceans. Something needs to change.
We’ve seen since the very beginning that people want to do the right thing and they’re willing to try something different to create a future without waste.
Membership powers Ridwell—our community is willing to invest in the movement to send less to landfills, paying a monthly fee of $14-$24. These memberships supply the majority of our revenue.
We often get questions about why we choose to operate this way and we’re happy to dive into the answers.
I don’t have to pay for curbside recycling, so why do I have to pay for Ridwell?
Ridwell is different. Our members aren’t customers—they’re agents of change.
Where curbside recycling is steady, Ridwell is constantly inventing. We find and vet partners who use “trash” to make new things. We also work with more than 200 nonprofit organizations in eight metro areas to reuse winter coats, kids’ books, eyeglasses, and other items we pick up from our community.
Pawsitive Alliance, an organization that supports dogs and cats in need across Washington State, picks up supplies from Ridwell members
Curbside recycling relies on long-term contracts, established infrastructure, and end markets who buy what’s picked up. Every item has a value attached. Cashing in on that value offsets the costs of collection and processing.
Plus, many recyclers loop together long-term contracts for hauling both recycling and garbage. This setup allows for dependable income even when the recycling market fluctuates.
While not without challenges—such as end market volatility, contamination issues, policy changes, and rising operational costs—the business is fairly straightforward.
What Ridwell does is much more complex and risky. Rather than starting with materials we can sell, we start with stuff we know is difficult for people to keep out of landfills.
For example, the multi-layer plastic used in food packaging like chip bags and bar wrappers is impossible to recycle with traditional methods. There’s no large-scale demand for the material. Plus, the technology to separate the layers doesn’t exist.
Yet, this material continues to be used so commonly in food packaging that about 5 million tons end up in landfills every year.
We set out to create a way to keep as much as possible out of landfills. We found several groundbreaking partners, including HydroBlox, who uses multi-layer plastic as the raw material for a water-drainage material.
Ridwell Head of Partnerships, Gerrine Pan, with Ed Grieser, CEO of HydroBlox
Creating new solutions takes people, time, and resources. Membership supports all of that. Without a community, we couldn’t find outside-the-box fixes like this.
Isn’t Ridwell making money by selling my stuff?
The materials we pick up generate about twenty cents per member per month—not nearly enough to run the service!
If the materials were valuable in the same way as aluminium, cardboard, plastic bottles and glass, they’d already be grouped in with traditional recycling. Making change requires creative solutions.
We pay to properly recycle our materials about 50% of the time, while partners pay us 11% of the time. About 39% of the time, no money is exchanged.
Compared to large hauling businesses, neither Ridwell nor our partners have ample resources. On the other end of our pickups are small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and even independent artists.
Together as a group of innovators and idealists, we and our partners are willing to take on the challenge of saving millions of pounds of items from landfills. We’re all willing to create a solution to make the effort financially viable.
What does membership actually pay for?
Ridwell membership supports every aspect of our mission.
The dedicated drivers who know your neighborhood by heart
The fleet of vehicles that make pickups happen (including electric vehicles!)
Our warehouse team who carefully sorts each item
Equipment to process materials
The innovative recycling partnerships we build
The healthcare we provide our driver and warehouse teams
The research to find new solutions for hard-to-recycle items
The technology that sends you text messages, powers your dashboard and tracks your impact
Will it always be this way?
We’re not sure if Ridwell will always run on a member-supported model. We believe new legislation over the next 5-10 years will be critical for making large-scale progress and could change how we operate.
Manufacturing requirements could lead to more demand for post-consumer materials (which would support Ridwell) while also reducing how much virgin material is used (which would help the planet!).
Extended Producer Responsibility programs could mean easier-to-recycle materials replace difficult ones like multi-layer plastic, and require producers of hard-to-recycle materials to fund programs like Ridwell.
Given the urgency of the waste problem, Ridwell couldn’t wait for those policy changes before taking action. And we’re glad we didn’t. Since Ridwell was founded in 2018, our members have kept more than 29 million pounds of recyclable and reusable material out of the waste stream.
The status quo can change if people change it. With continued support from our caring and conscientious community, we’ll keep breaking boundaries and waste won’t win.
Ridwell member? Help other boundary breakers find out how great it feels to send less to landfills by giving them a free month.
