Ridwell service
I’m wrestling with providing Ridwell assistance to my clients. I’d be grateful for your opinion. Ridwell is an AMAZING company which provides a subscription service to help people responsibly dispose of hard-to-recycle items like batteries. I ADORE Ridwell, for everything from its humble Seattle origins, to its conscientious, creative expansions of its capacity and its territories.
But maintaining a Ridwell account can be a nuisance, IF you happen to have a poor sense of time, or sorting isn’t your thing, or out-of-sight is out of mind… SOOOOOO. What if I offered a “$10/visit I’ll do it for you” add-on to my basic fees? If I show up and you’ve got this big ‘ol bag of batteries, yea, sure, in my car it goes. Or the pill bottles. You thought you’d use those bread tags in an art project. If you haven’t got something, I don’t take something. And if my Ridwell bag starts to rip because I’ve got soooooo many batteries, I commit to getting to equivalent entities like Staples if necessary.
I’m not going to be able to take the honkin’ huge stuff like styrofoam. And I need to be honest here. I’ve been doing some of this for free, as a courtesy. My challenge is the fact that it is getting harder and harder and harder and harder for me to do so, because gas is going up, the pool of recycling agencies is shrinking, and OMMIMULTIVERSE the commute.
I am NOT considering charging for my three basic donation services, Bella’s Voice, PCs for People (formerly Interconnection), and a Hopelink Food Bank. And I’m not going to eliminate the option of coordinating something more complicated for a fee – my favorite example of that for all time is here.
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I use these services. Free haz waste recycling at 4 sites in King County and one in Everett for Snohomish County. City of Seattle will recycle white styrofoam blocks for free, if you call and bag it separately in clear or white garbage bags. It just goes out next to your regular garbage pick up. It can also be dropped off at certain other locations outside of Seattle. And electronics go to Goodwill (e-cycle program) for free. Because so much collected plastic isn’t actually recycled (only about 10%!), I don’t stress out much any more about throwing away small bits of plastic like bread ties. We’re creating more waste by requiring sorting and transporting of something that will ultimately end up in the landfill . Hoping we can figure out a better way to reduce our plastic consumption and recycling. I would consider making Ridwell an optional charge. Thank you for being so thoughtful of our planet! :)
OOOO WOW, I didn’t know that there are public styrofoam options and that is awesome! I only know of one private one in Kent. Yes, Goodwill is a certified electronics recycler, which means it also responsibly wipes the data from machines as needed. That’s not always true of electronics recyclers. Yes, we really need to get creative with these solutions.
Hi Lauren — Living on the other (east) coast, I’m not familiar with Ridwell. But if I were an in-person client of yours (rather than an online client), I would be ECSTATIC if you would take away all the theoretically-recyclable-but-I-don’t-have-an-easy-place-to-take-them bits and pieces (spent pens! — and so many other types of things) — and for just $10. Sign me up!
THANK YOU for your opinion! For what it’s worth, Ridwell does have mail-in service in your area. I just checked (insert winking emoji here). Lauren