On average, Denverites recycle only 63% of the recyclable waste generated by their household each year. Making small recycling changes can make a huge difference!
In this month’s Denver Recycles’ Roundup issue:
- Tips for Easily Recycling Hard-to-Recycle Items (this is a really helpful article and includes info about the Recycling Directory which contains listings of local recycling outlets for many items from license plates to inner tubes).
- Give Yourself a Break This Summer by Grasscycling
OK, so what ELSE do you if Denver doesn’t recycle an item? Let us introduce you to Ridwell. Ridwell makes it easy to recycle, reuse and donate the items you no longer need. They are new to the Denver area and are an interesting approach to addressing the hard-to-recycle market. Recently we received a message from Cory, one of Ridwell’s interns who is assisting with their expansion into Denver. We’d like to share a portion of his message to introduce Ridwell to our Hilltop neighbors:
My name is Cory and I’m a student at CU Denver. I’m currently interning for an eco-friendly, sustainability-focused company called Ridwell and assisting with their expansion into Denver.
About Ridwell: Started as a weekend project by a father and son, Ridwell is a subscription service that helps people waste less by offering home pickups of items that can’t be placed in curbside recycling. Those items are then brought to local and regional partners for appropriate reuse and recycling.
All of us at Ridwell are excited to start serving Denver! I’ve already gotten a list of great community partners including WeeCycle, SustainAbility, GreenSheen, and more. These groups will receive donations that are gathered through Ridwell’s rotating specialty categories, which change each pickup depending on the needs of partners. The whole goal of Ridwell is to reduce waste while providing benefits for both subscribing members and the local partners who receive donations.
This week Ridwell offered a free pickup of plastic film for everyone on our Denver waitlist and collected enough plastic to fill an entire storage unit! Instead of the landfill, all of this plastic will go on to be recycled into Trex composite decking.
Denverites already are eager for the service to launch so that they can start wasting less. We currently have a wait list that has nearly 1400 sign-ups on it, and as soon as it hits 1,500 the service will officially launch in Denver. Below is a link to the waitlist.
