Paid recycling services - verifying what they do, and best total impact?

April 15, 2021 7:45 AM

Is there any way to verify that recycling services like Ridwell and GreenDisk actually keep stuff out of landfill? Should I put money and effort into better landfill policies rather than my own individual trash?

I've been considering using recycling services, and I'm trying to decide if it's money well spent.

A friend is in the Ridwell service area and is thinking of signing up, but wondered how anyone would know if it was a scam where they just take your money and dump your stuff in landfill anyway. Meanwhile, I've been considering using GreenDisk for all my obsolete data CD-Rs, and it seems like a lot of money to keep, basically, one or two big bins of trash out of my trash pickup.

So, two main questions:

1. Is there any way to verify that a recycling service actually does what they say they do, and keeps stuff out of landfill?

2. Is it better for the environment to pay a service to try to keep my own trash out of landfill, or to spend that money and time to work for better waste policies that affect everybody's disposal impact?

Thanks!

Kristi

posted by kristi to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

Are you still in San Francisco? With it's liberal reputation, I am surprised that recycling is not rolled into your city trash pick-up services. In both Raleigh, North Carolina (where I moved from), and Albuquerque, New Mexico (where I am now), residents pay just one bill to the city, and the city contracts with a recycling service, which picks up across the city. There is no need to sign up.

I don't know how much it would cost your for a private service, so I won't speak to what you should do with your money. Are there recycling drop-off sites where you could take your recyclables? We had those even in the little town of Grants, N.M.

But what I do recommend is trying to bring your city government on board with recycling for residents.
posted by NotLost at 8:18 AM on April 15, 2021

Seattle, where Ridwell started, has a very robust city recycling program. What Ridwell does is take all the things that the city recycling program doesn't: styrofoam, plastic bags, batteries, etc., and on a rotating basis even more esoteric items like eyeglasses, and then send them in bulk to places that do accept those products for recycling or reuse. They are more of a consolidator and redistributor of recyclables that the average consumer would have a difficult time of dealing with.
posted by QuakerMel at 8:25 AM on April 15, 2021

Sorry, just to clarify:

I do indeed have great recycling (and composting) available already. Ridwell and GreenDisk are for the stuff that can't go into the regular recycling, like bread bags and bubble-pack shipping mailers, and CDs.

These services are supplemental recycling, taking the stuff that regular city recycling services won't take.

(As QuakerMel just said.)

Thanks!
posted by kristi at 8:37 AM on April 15, 2021

What Ridwell does is take all the things that the city recycling program doesn't: styrofoam, plastic bags, batteries

Which is silly, as the city takes at least batteries for free.

My question is, why do you want to keep noon-hazardous things out of a landfill?

Styrofoam is 99% air. Does it make sense for anyone to make a separate trip (likely in a petroleum-burning vehicle) to do something with it?

With climate change, the problem is we dug up CO2-containing material and burned it. Putting inert plastic back in the ground is net-zero.

We aren't running out of space, so that's not an issue.

So the answer depends entirely what reasons you have for avoiding landfills. The best would be to embrace the first R and don't acquire something you need to throw away.
posted by flimflam at 9:01 AM on April 15, 2021

I use Terracycle boxes, I like that they ship me a box (so using a truck that is coming to my neighborhood anyway) and I fill the box and drop it at a UPS store (in a trip where I was going by there anyway). It isn't someone driving separately to my house just for me.

A lot of the reason that certain things aren't recyclable is that they are comingled and it isn't worth it to separate them out so I see no reason that they wouldn't do what they say because you are doing the work to separate the pieces appropriately. I don't have any proof they do do what they say though.

I started with just the grocery bag one (because grocery delivery meant I wasn't using my re-useable bags) and now I have a plastic packaging one, a grocery bag one, and a chip bag one. I try to get boxes to separate as much as possible myself (even though all three of those things are allowed in their "plastic packaging" box) because these things are more useful as recyclables when they are completely separated.
posted by magnetsphere at 9:35 AM on April 15, 2021

Styrofoam is 99% air. Does it make sense for anyone to make a separate trip (likely in a petroleum-burning vehicle) to do something with it?

I detrash in and around waterways on Saturdays and the amount of Styrofoam (and similar packaging materials) I scoop out, or painstakingly pick up by hand, tiny ball by tiny ball, is staggering.

This stuff goes into creeks, to the rivers, to the ocean. I'd rather not have to spend three hours picking up a million bits of Styrofoam when I could be pulling out larger pieces of plastic for a greater (see: more visible) impact. Places people see trash are places people tend to toss more trash, while places that are trash-free are less likely to attract petrovandals.

So, this doesn't answer OP's question but absolutely Styrofoam should be recycled where you can (because if it goes to landfill chances are a some of it is going to blow away and it will in all probability end up in a waterway).
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:49 PM on April 15, 2021

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and input.

Not sure what I'm going to do from here, or what to tell my friend, but the perspectives have all been helpful.

Thanks!
posted by kristi at 1:54 PM on April 18, 2021