Elementary schools in any Ridwell service area are welcome and encouraged to participate. Schools need to be in a service area to enable pickup of the plastic film on our van route.

Anybody with a connection to an elementary school can lead a drive! You don't need to be a Ridwell member. You may be a parent, staff member, or simply someone with ties to a local school. Just be sure you’re connected in a way that allows you to get school approval and share information with families.

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.

You’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.

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!

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.

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 Ridwell offers service.

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.

That's great—we’re big fans of Trex! Ridwell is a Trex partner, so the plastic film you collect for the drive can be counted towards your Trex total. Just record your collection as you typically do in the Trex portal.