School Drive Resources
Program overview
Find your must-have info right here! See the drive timeline and learn about your number one resource—your school’s unique landing page.
We’ll send you a link to a page just for your school community. On your unique page, folks can find information about the drive and register to learn more about how Ridwell helps families send less to landfills from home. Note that the registration fields won’t show for any active Ridwell members—instead, members will see a button to share the page!
The page also features a counter that tracks how close your school is to earning Ridwell service and a field trip. New members must sign up through your school’s unique landing page to count !
November
Time for your drive! Get set up and collect plastic film. Make sure to register after we notify you of your pickup date to be sure our van stops by.
Your school’s drive webpage
December
On your unique landing page, track your school’s progress toward the goal of signing up 10-20 new Ridwell members. December 15 is the final day!
Questions? Visit FAQ >
Plan your drive
A successful drive starts with a little bit of planning. Take a peek at the key things to think about and see the best tips from folks who lead drives last spring.
Decisions to make:
What date(s) will you host your drive? Your pickup will happen between November 4 and 15.
If you elected to receive a yard sign, where will you display it?
What container will you use to collect plastic film? Where will you put it? Do you want to set up more than one?
Where will you communicate about the drive? You know your school community best! To make it easy, grab templates and printouts from the promote your drive section below.
Email to school families and teachers
Morning or assembly announcement
Flyers to send home
Posters at drop-off/pick-up points
Blurbs in school newsletters
Social media posts on the school’s channels
Posts in applicable Facebook groups
Tips & tricks from successful drive leaders:
Communicate early and often!
Get connected with the PTA and school administration ASAP to be sure they’re bought in. Sharing information via their channels (such as newsletters) is key.
Take and share photos of plastic film, ideally including enthusiastic students (make sure to get permission if including kids!)
Promote your drive
Spread the word! Grab ready-made materials here and download the Ridwell logo if you’d like to make your own.
Tips & tricks from successful drive leaders:
Make sure families understand what plastic film is and that it can’t be recycled curbside (Education below!)
You can often find samples of Trex decking at home improvement stores. This is what becomes of all the plastic film you collect, so showing a sample at school can be really interesting!
Share with neighbors even if they don’t have school-aged kids
Remind your school community that they can also share about the drive with others not in the community
Flyer
Customize the fall 2024 school drive flyer in Canva with your drive dates and your school’s unique URL!
If you don’t have a Canva account, sign up for one at www.canva.com (free version is fine!)
Go to the Ridwell school drive template in English or Spanish
Click the button to use the template
Fill in your school’s drive dates and URL. If you like, make a QR code using the same URL, then cut and paste it into the flyer.
Print to hand out and hang around school. Download to attach to emails.
Plastic film info sheet
It’s much easier to inspire folks to participate in the drive when they understand the “why” behind it! This one-page resource is the quickest way to help your community learn about plastic film, why it’s hard to recycle, and how Ridwell keeps it out of landfills. Print it to share around school and download it to attach it to emails.
Social post
Download social-ready images to use on the school’s social channels
Copy/paste this caption template, fill in the highlights, and adjust as you like!
We’re keeping plastic film out of landfills this fall with a @getRidwell recycling drive! Bring yours to school on [date(s)]! We also have the chance to earn a field trip and ongoing recycling for the school. Find out more at [your school’s unique url].
Plastic film guide
Help folks see exactly what to bring in for the drive with this guide! Print it to share around school and download it to attach it to emails.
Customizable templates
Download a set of templates to customize with your school’s details, then copy and paste. Adjust as you like!
Includes:
Email to families/school community
Email to teachers/school staff
Newsletter blurb
Announcement script
Lesson plan
A former elementary school teacher and current homeschooler named Katie who runs an education community called Team Kind Humans made a lesson plan about Ridwell (teamkindhumans.com). True to her ethos of kindness, she’s made it available for free to the Ridwell community with code RIDWELL. Feel free to pass it on or use it yourself to help kids learn more about recycling.
We love that she talks about why it’s important to recycle items that you can’t toss in your curbside recycling bin and that she shows behind the scenes in our warehouse. Plus, she introduces our founder, Ryan, and his son who inspired Ridwell, Owen!
Get set up for your drive
Signage to print:
Sign for your container
Tape the sign to your collection container to differentiate it from garbage cans.
Plastic film what-we-take poster
Hang up near the container to help people double check what kind of plastic is included in the drive. Print at 11’’ x 17’’ for the best readability.
You provide:
A container to collect film. Clean trash cans generally work well.
Large plastic bags to put in the container. These can double as the bags you give to us. Any plastic bag you can tie closed works well. Large trash bags like what the school uses are a great option. Schools in the past have filled an average of 3 large bags (as you probably already know, you can pack a lot of film in a small space!).
Program FAQ
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You’ll receive a special yard sign to display at your school (if you select this at registration), access to a digital resources kit, and a drive webpage made just for your school where your community can join Ridwell and you can track your progress towards earning a year of plastic film pickups and a field trip for your school. You’ll also have a dedicated resource from Ridwell available to answer questions along the way.n text goes here
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DeYou’ll serve as the liaison between Ridwell and your school. Before registering, be sure to get any needed approval from your school. You’ll be in charge of getting the word out about this drive and sharing your school’s unique new member sign-up link with your school community. You’ll also be coordinating the collection, getting any needed supplies (i.e., bags or receptacles), and registering for pickup at the school.scription text goes here
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Communicating early and often about the program has been key to success for past participants. This might include parent/guardian emails, assembly announcements, flyers to send home social media posts, posters at drop-off/pick-up points, Facebook PTA groups, and school newsletters. You know your community best and likely have other ideas as well!
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To add
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We don't expect you to sort! Please do your best to explain what's included to minimize mix-ups. We'll sort out any rogue materials at our facility.
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In early October, we’ll create a signup webpage for your school where you’ll be able to see the number of new members in your school community joining Ridwell. We’ll use the page to track every new member who joins until December 15, 2024. You'll earn pickup at the school with 10 new members and a field trip with 20!
Note that new members must sign up through your page to be counted!
Schools in a Ridwell service area with 10 or more new members joining through your page will receive monthly plastic film pickups at your school for January through June, 2025! If you earn ongoing pickups, we’ll provide collection receptacles and will pick up directly from your school.
Schools with 20 or more new members joining through your page will also be awarded a field trip for up to 50 attendees to visit your local Ridwell warehouse to see firsthand what it takes to keep 22+ million pounds of waste out of landfills.
The new members don’t need to attend or be directly connected to your school, so feel free to share this link with friends and family, wherever
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If you earn pickups for the rest of the school year, we’ll provide a collection receptacle, bag liners and a sign of what is accepted. We’ll pick up directly from your school (so you don’t need to bring the materials home).
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Up to 50 attendees from your school will visit your local Ridwell warehouse for a tour.
See mountains of stuff that's been saved from the landfill and find out what will happen to it all
Learn more about why certain materials are difficult to recycle
Ask questions and meet members of the Ridwell team
Note that you'll need to provide transportation to your local Ridwell warehouse.
Warehouses are located in:
San Leandro, CA
Van Nuys, CA
Denver, CO
Atlanta, GA
St. Paul, MN
Portland, OR
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA -
If you participated in previous drives, you may remember that only Ridwell members could be leaders. Since then, we made operational improvements to enable pickups directly at the school rather than at a member's home, opening up the opportunity for more people to choose to be leaders.
Plus, we added the ability to earn a field trip when 20 new Ridwell members are inspired to join through your webpage! This way, kids can see firsthand what happens to the mountains of materials our members keep out of the landfill. -
We're working on a way to offer regular pickups at schools in the future. If this is a service your school would highly value and could allocate budget towards, please fill out this form and we’ll add you to our waitlist.
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Multi-Layer Plastic is not part of this spring’s school drive. If families would like to recycle these materials, this category is available on our home-based Plastic Plus and Unlimited plans. **Be sure to remind your community members to sign up via your unique url which will be sent to you in early April, so that those signups will be counted towards your school’s goal!
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Ridwell operates in 8 different metro areas across 7 states. You can see a list of neighborhoods and areas we currently service here! Feel free to share your school’s link with friends and family in any of the areas Ridwell offers service as they don’t need to attend or be directly connected to your school.
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We understand how this can happen and wish we can accommodate situations like this, but with a small team and over 300 schools participating in the Spring 2024 program, we are only able to count new memberships that are tracked through this link.
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Please email schools@ridwell.com with your move date and new address. If you are moving to an apartment, gated community, or multi-unit building, please confirm with your building/community management that Ridwell pickups are okay within your new area and send us the access notes (call box, bin location, etc) to add to your account.
Other questions? Email schools@Ridwell.com >
Learn
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Learn 〰️
Browse the resources below to learn more about plastic film, common recycling mistakes, and Ridwell. Choose your favorites to share with your school community during the drive, making it an educational opportunity. You’ll find printable materials, videos, blog posts, and more.
Recycling plastic film
The more you know about plastic film, the better you’ll motivate your community to keep it out of landfills. These resources will help you discover how to identify plastic film, understand why it’s hard to recycle (and not accepted by curbside programs), and how Ridwell recycles it with our partner Trex.
Common recycling mistakes
Learning about common recycling mistakes will help you inspire people to do better! Many people don’t realize they’re making mistakes—when they find out, they’re usually eager to make small changes that add up to a big impact on how much waste they send to landfills.
About Ridwell
Lots of people wonder how our doorstep pickup service works and what exactly we pick up. This two-page resource will help you learn and explain—print it and fill in the blank space with your school’s page link or make a QR code using the same link.