One thing I’d been looking forward to doing in a house of our own is engaging in a targeted recycling program like Ridwell (https://www.ridwell.com/). It started in Seattle and I wished to be one of the houses with a Ridwell box on the porch. But when I investigated joining I found they do not have service here across the Sound in Kitsap County. I input my email for updates just in case things changed, and forgot about it til I received a message from them inviting me to attend a community event they were putting on in July. There, the company pitched us on a new pilot program they were running in Kitsap County. It would not be full Ridwell service, but it would be something and hopefully we’d help them to refine the program and enable its expansion. 

Basically the program is this: subscribe to receive pre-paid mailer envelopes, fill them all the way up with the correct type of recyclable material (they offer two bags – one for plastic food packaging like granola bar pouches and one for stretchy plastic packaging like cling film), then USPS takes it to a Ridwell facility where it’s sorted and sold to local manufacturers that refine the plastic and use it as material for their products, one of which being the outdoor building material Trex (https://www.trex.com/). We generate a LOT of this kind of waste in our house, and I love finding ways to reduce my landfill contribution, so we signed right up. We’ve already sent in our first set of envelopes and gotten a confirmation email that it was received at Ridwell. I hope it expands both in scale and scope, it’s a really good idea and it makes me feel like less of a consumer goblin.

-Jess