How much would you pay to go (almost) zero waste?
For my household, it was $240. When I asked my wife if she wanted an annual subscription to Ridwell — a service to recycle stuff you can’t put in your bin — she didn’t hesitate. “If that’s the cost of going zero waste,” she told me. “I’m willing to pay that.” That’s a luxury not everyone can pay for. But for the price of a few snack bags per month, you can keep those wrappers — and many, many others — out of a landfill, and take care of the plastic bags, film and packaging curbside bins won’t take. Apparently, we’re not alone. Few companies have inspired more questions in my inbox than Ridwell. The eight-year-old company says it has collected 49 million pounds of material, 97 percent of which is reused or recycled, from plastic bags to pickleballs, to recycle or be reused for a second life.
Ridwell’s doorstep pickup service starts at $20 per month in eight metro areas, including Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area and Atlanta. A mail-in option for plastic film, snack wrappers and bottle caps, among other items, starts at $10 per bag. What Ridwell will rid you of is diverse: Orange prescription bottles become glasses frames, while bike inner tubes are made into wallets. Hard-to-recycle plastics, electronics, lightbulbs, batteries and even old pickleballs are accepted. For an additional fee, Ridwell takes bulky or hazardous items such as latex paint, fluorescent tubes and Styrofoam. And, of course, every recycler’s nemesis: mountains of plastic bags. The service takes more than just waste. Donations such as clothes, nonperishable food, used pet supplies and kids’ books are sent to local partners. “We do the gaps” left by municipal recycling, said founder and CEO Ryan Metzger. “I would call it complementary.” Ridwell could be the way out of a wasteful future — or merely a way to truck away your guilt in what may be the most wasteful society, per capita, in history.
The answer depends on whether we can rethink what waste is. If we treat recycling as only what happens after we’re done with something, its environmental benefits are limited. If we treat it as a system that starts before a product is even designed, we may finally fix our complex and contaminated waste stream.
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