Would you pay a few extra bucks to recycle hard-to-recycle plastics? This company is banking on it

If you could recycle hard-to-recycle plastics through the mail for a few extra bucks, would you?

Ridwell, a Seattle-based recycling company, hopes residents throughout Sonoma County and in the city of Napa say “yes.”

Ridwell is a third-party provider that has been helping people in parts of seven western states recycle previously difficult-to-salvage items. The company specializes in “flexible plastics” — things like chip bags, single-use grocery bags, snack wrappers, Amazon packaging and pet food bags.

Ridwell customers get a box every two weeks that they fill with goods, including multi-layer plastic, plastic film, batteries, flat lids, light bulbs, clothes, shoes, textiles, electronics, prescription pill bottles, bottle caps, corks, bread tags and plastic clam shells.

A courier picks up the box and leaves a new one. The materials are then shipped to Ridwell’s local and regional partners like Trex, a company that turns plastic film into composite decking.

That program’s cost starts at $14 a month. Since its inception in 2018, Ridwell says it has gained more than 100,000 customers and has saved more than 28 million pounds of flexible plastics from going into landfills.

In Sonoma County and the city of Napa, that service isn’t available … yet.

But the company is rolling out a new service here, called Ridwell Express.

Instead of a courier, Ridwell Express is a mail service; customers can fill two expandable 21-inch by 14-inch envelopes with film plastic, such as sandwich or freezer bags, and flexible plastic, such as dog food bags. Each can hold up to three pounds of material

Once they’re full, the Postal Service will pick up the envelopes and ship the plastics to Ridwell’s storage facility in San Leandro. The plastics will then be sent to Trex or Hydroblox, which will turn the multilayer plastic into building and drainage materials.

The company has rolled out Ridwell Express to residents in Sonoma County, plus the city of Napa, says Ridwell president and founder Ryan Metzger.

The cost? $30 for a two-envelope “starter kit” and $18 for additional pairs of recycling bags. People can order kits online and get more detailed information at express.ridwell.com/get-started.

“There has been a lot of public interest,” Metzger said. “People have been asking us, ‘Is this available where I live?’”

But not everyone is sold, especially some current garbage and recycling service providers, such as Napa Recycling and Waste Services, and Recology, which serves large swaths of Sonoma County.

“It really targets affluent customers who are willing to pay extra,” said Greg Kelley of Napa Recycling and Waste Services. “If you calculate it by weight, their services are high compared to traditional recycling models.”

Recology Community Relations and Sustainability Manager Celia Furber agreed, adding that “many of the materials Ridwell takes can already be recycled at no charge.”

Garbage rates throughout Sonoma and Napa counties, which include recycling and compost service, vary between $27 and $41 a month for a 32-gallon garbage can (plus a 96-gallon blue recycling bin and 96-gallon green composting bin).

“Ridwell should be subject to the same rules as other waste haulers,” Furber said. “This varies by jurisdiction, but generally includes having a license or permit, having regulated rates, paying a fee to the jurisdiction, paying employees a living wage and providing transparent reporting on diverted material.”

Ridwell’s Metzger says the company collaborates with local garbage haulers to ensure harmony and offers reporting on its diversion rates on its website.

“We are very clear about what we do and what we don’t do,” he said. “We’re also very transparent.”

Metzger also argues the company’s convenience is worth its value, noting that people find it difficult and time-consuming to drive to grocery stores to recycle plastic bags, for example.

“There’s always a series of challenges,” Metzger said.

Santa Rosa residents Lucy Groetsch and Kara Sumner agreed, saying that’s why they came to an informational meeting about Ridwell at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building on Wednesday.

Self-described recycling fanatics, they said they find Recology’s offerings can be limiting and don’t always have time to drive recyclable materials to drop-off sites.

“There are holes in the system,” Sumner said.

The city of Napa’s recycling manager, Kevin Miller, understands residents’ frustrations.

“People will ask me why we can’t take Styrofoam, for example,” Miller said. “It’s that it’s not that city haulers can’t take Styrofoam or flexible plastics — it’s that doing so simply isn’t financially viable.”

Because the material is so light, “it would cost around $1,000 a ton to haul a truck of flexible plastics and we would make $60,” he said.

That difference, he added, would inevitably be passed onto the ratepayers. “The numbers just don’t pan out,” he said.

While Ridwell isn’t yet providing its full service in Sonoma and Napa, the company is looking to do so in the future. Metzger said the company needs the capital to establish a warehouse in Sonoma County before it can start its courier service. He believes it would get there once 750 people sign up for Ridwell Express.

Sonoma County Resource Recovery, which now provides trash hauling services for Windsor and will start doing so in Sebastopol in July, isn’t concerned about Ridwell.

“Residents can engage with a third party for items we cannot recycle,” said SCRR Business Manager Alissa Johnson.

Amie Windsor is the Community Journalism Team Lead with The Press Democrat. She can be reached at amie.windsor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5218.