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For years, a company that collects and recycles waste has been trying to get a foothold in Mountain View but has not had any success. Now it has devised a workaround to help residents get rid of trash not recycled by the city.
Ridwell, a Seattle-based company, has launched a service that lets customers mail their household plastics to other cities for recycling.
“Our goal is to find alternatives for materials that don’t work in traditional recycling, whether that’s things that can be reused or things that can be recycled in different ways,” said Ridwell CEO and co-founder Ryan Metzger.
Ridwell operates in more than 50 Bay Area cities, but thus far has not been allowed to offer its curbside services in Mountain View, Metzger said.
Mountain View has an exclusive contractual agreement with Recology, a waste-hauler that it has used for decades. The agreement prohibits third-party providers from collecting curbside materials except in rare cases, the city told the Voice in December.
Ridwell is now signing up Mountain View customers for an “express” mail service that will send their household plastics to San Leandro, about 30 miles away. The arrangement does not contravene the city’s contract with Recology, according to Metzger.
“On a really high level, it seems surprising to me that this would be okay,” Metzger said. “Why can we not pick up from someone’s house when the post office carrier can? But that’s what it is,” he said.
Lenka Wright, a city spokesperson, says it is not clear whether recycling by mail would be allowed under the current franchise agreement with Recology. “The topic hasn’t come up with Recology,” she said in an email.
Wright also noted that Mountain View residents can recycle many items that Ridwell is offering to collect, like plastic pill bottles. The local Safeways accept plastic film and bags as well, according to Wright.
But Metzger contends that drop-off bins for plastics at grocery stores often get contaminated with other waste, and the recycling process is not as effective or as transparent as their services.
According to Metzger, the express service emerged as people sought to recycle plastics but struggled to do so easily, especially if they live in cities outside of Ridwell’s coverage area.
The mail service is meant for hard-to-reach places, but it also has found a niche with customers who prefer a mail-in option because it is based on usage rather than a regularly scheduled pick up, Metzger said.
Last week, Metzger presented Ridwell’s express service to about 40 people at the Mountain View Community Center. Many brought in armfuls of plastics that they could not recycle using the city’s curbside services.
“I’m passionate about recycling,” said Mountain View resident Page McDonald, who attended the May 2 presentation. McDonald expressed disappointment that Ridwell could not offer curbside service in Mountain View and said she was considering the express mail option. “It’s part of the cost of consumption,” she said.
Several other people also voiced dismay about the lack of a curbside option but gamely signed up for the mail service, remarking on its apparent ease of use and affordability. A starter kit is $30, according to Ridwell’s website.
As part of the express service, households receive prepaid postage bags to fill with disposable plastics, like food packaging and prescription bottles. They then can schedule a pickup with the postal service on a day that their mail is dropped off or go to the post office directly, Metzger said.
Once it is received, the plastic is sorted at a Ridwell facility and condensed into 1,000-pound cubed bales. The bales are then shipped to partners who repurpose the plastic for other uses, like Trex, a material used for outdoor decks.
Since 2018, Ridwell has diverted more than 30 million pounds of trash from landfills, according to its website.
The hope is that Mountain View will eventually let Ridwell expand its offerings to include curbside pickup, Metzger said. More than 500 people have expressed an interest in the service, he added.
It also would dovetail with the city’s “Zero Waste” goals, a plan to divert 90% of the city’s trash from landfills by 2030, Metzger said.
Mountain View resident Kathryn Carpenter expressed a similar desire to see the city reach its zero waste goals. “I’m grateful for what we have, but we need more partners to get there,” she said.
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It’s notable that so many members showed up for the event given it was in the middle of a workday, and a lot of residents were likely unaware it was happening. We absolutely should make the curbside option happen in Mountain View for the reasons called out in this article, and sooner rather than later. All other means, including those offered by the City here, are bandaid workarounds. It’s certainly disingenuous for Recology to object when the items that would be picked up by Ridwell are intended to be those that Recology does not deal with.
The city renegotiates contracts all the time. Recology is a monopoly who really only cares about money. I can’t believe there isn’t a price that they are willing to pay to unlock their monopoly contract.