Minneapolis residents will soon have a new way to get rid of unwanted stuff that keeps it out of landfills. Ridwell, a Seattle-based startup intent on reinventing recycling, will launch local service in January, making the Twin Cities its fourth market as part of an ambitious national expansion plan. Ridwell specializes in hard-to-dispose of items: foam packing material, light bulbs, batteries, and the like as well as larger household goods that tend to pile up. For a monthly fee of $12 to $16, the company provides a bin and reusable bags. Contents get picked up by Ridwell every two weeks and distributed to partners who “ethically recycle or reuse them.”
“We provide a recycling alternative that makes people happy,” said Ridwell co-founder and CEO Ryan Metzger. The idea for Ridwell grew out of a home project: Metzger and his son Owen, now 10, wanted to “do the right thing” and find the best way to dispose of dead batteries. From there, the father and son started researching the most eco-friendly ways to dispose of electronics and other household goods. As their list of recycling partners grew, they volunteered to pick up their neighbors’ stuff. It started four years ago with five households in their Seattle neighborhood and multiplied. Before long, 4,000 people had signed up for their service and a company was born.
Today Ridwell serves more than 50,000 members in Seattle, Portland, and Denver. Backed by “mission driven private investors,” Metzger said the company has recycled 3 million pounds of materials to date. “It was eye-opening to see there were so many people like us who really had a desire to keep things from landfills and create recycling opportunities in a way that helped the community,” Metzger said.