RecycleBank: The Creation of a Black Market for Trash
Posted on | August 6, 2010 | 18 Comments
Commodity prices, such as gold and steel, are on the rise. Unfortunately I do not own any of these commodities. What other commodity value is on the rise that I do own? My trash.
Well, not trash exactly. But recyclable trash. It’s like Houston opened up a scrap metal shop with roadside service. I need only put all of my magazines, newspapers, cardboard boxes (broken down), windowed junk envelopes, plastics 1-5 and 7, glass, etc. into the same bin, and then once every other week a big truck comes, weighs how much I’ve contributed, scans my barcode, and then I am credited with rewards points through RecycleBank. Rewards include coupons, goods, and gift cards (Home Depot, Wal-Mart, etc.), which are currently 2500 points for a $10 denomination.
How much weight in trash does that equal? I am not sure yet…but according to a letter we received from the City of Houston, we could earn from between $20-$45 per month in gifts!
Let me back up a moment. For years, I have been sorting through my trash, rinsing out empty salsa glass jars, nicely reminding guests/roommates/boyfriends/fiancée that there is a recycling bin not two feet from the actual trash can, and then sometimes driving this trash several miles across town to deposit it where I know someone can make good use of it. The fact that a company is now going to pick up my trash, in front of my house, without me having to even sort it, and then pay me for it, is about the best thing sin triple and double coupon days.
This has no doubt set my mind to wander over how I can increase the throughput of Houston’s recyclable goods through our recycling bin. Perhaps on Thursday mornings, I can recycle-bin dive and add to my collection. I could volunteer to empty the recycling bins at work, but instead take them home and hoard them until that glorious recycling day comes upon us once more. Idling around the waiting rooms of doctors to scoop up all of those out-of-date magazines could now be very lucrative (with the binding, they must weigh over two pounds each—especially O Oprah and vogue!), or maybe I can just put a new ‘Donate Your Trash’ button on my blog (oh the potential!). We could even start to eat spaghetti and meatballs each night so that I would be forced to purchase glass bottles of sauce (glass weighing more than plastic). In fact I spoke with one of my coworkers, a frugalite like me, and she suggested we start offering our own form of curbside pickup in neighborhoods that do not have the city’s service.
Nah. I won’t go to these extremes, but I am very motivated to increase our throughput of trash in the green bin versus the black bin (or the money-making bin versus the death-by-landfill bin). Perhaps I will gladly accept all of my friends’ old magazines though, and the next time someone has a baby shower coming up, I will take a collection for a group gift…a trash collection, of course.
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March 29th, 2010 @ 12:04 pm
We don’t have recycling service, much less this very cool system.
I do save all our aluminum cans and newspapers in the garage anyway though…I figure that I’ll get around to driving them somewhere someday.
Want to pick up a huge pile of newspapers and 3 trash bags full of cans?
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March 29th, 2010 @ 4:37 pm
I wish they did that is Chester County, PA!!
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March 29th, 2010 @ 5:10 pm
I actually emailed our local government about this program many months ago, because it looks awesome!! Our township is definitely taking steps in the right direction, such as this year they now pick up ALL recyclable items mixed together in one bin at the curb, whereas before it was only #1&2 plastics, clear glass, aluminum and paper/cardboard. For colored glass you had to drop them off at the township building yourself (which we always did). And apparently it has made a significant difference in the recycling rate for our township, which is excellent! I am hoping someday we move to the RecycleBank program. For now, I just send them my old cell phones to get some points once in a while, and I was able to score coupons for free dish soap
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March 30th, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
Your brainstorming session reminded me of the day my drivers ed teacher made me pull over in a residential neighborhood so he could go through somebody’s trash. Ok, I wasn’t mortified. I kept thinking to myself,”Oh God, if somebody sees me they’re going to think that is my dad!”.
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August 6th, 2010 @ 3:26 pm
We still have 2 big boxes of newspapers and 3 bags of aluminum cans if you’re interested…
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August 6th, 2010 @ 4:35 pm
Crystal–hehehehehe:) thank you for the offer! I suppose we would need to meet up for that…
Amanda L. Grossman recently posted..Banning the words “I Can’t Afford It”
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August 7th, 2010 @ 7:05 pm
How many points do you earn for a beer bottle? I have lots and lots of them every month. I always blush a bit when I’m taking out my trash because it always sounds like the bags you would hear at a bar being taken out with all the clinking.
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August 10th, 2010 @ 10:28 am
Oh my gosh – can we talk RecycleBank please? I LOVE it! I know how to earn points from other things. But I’ve never been able to sign up for the recycling part. Maybe I’m just missing it. But step by step how did you figure out how to sign up for your recycling? On my screen when I click the community recycling (or whatever it is) button, it does nothing! So I’ve been confused as to how people do this.
But I have gotten 4 bottles of Seventh Gen dishwasher soap, 3 of their all purpose cleaner, and coupons!! Woohooo! Great program!
Thankfully Thrifty recently posted..Travel Vouchers
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August 10th, 2010 @ 11:22 am
Hello Thankfully Thrifty!
I had to call them and make sure my account was signed up. You might want to do the same–and then every other week when your recycling is picked up (do you have curbside pick up?), you will get an automatic email telling you how many points you’ve earned. Some communities in Houston are not signed onto the curbside and recyclebank yet, so that might be the issue for you as well.
I hope that helps!
Amanda L. Grossman recently posted..A Series of Unfortunate Events- Do You Buffer Your Checking Account
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August 10th, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
Ohhh good to know! Well thanks for that! I will call them for sure. I was loving my freebies, but they quit accepting my easy earning method – Kashless. Haha. So I’ll be excited to earn again! Stonyfield yogurt (if you eat that brand) has a similar program – you earn points for items… I say their similar because they are typically green and organic items.
Thankfully Thrifty recently posted..Travel Vouchers
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August 25th, 2010 @ 1:45 pm
This program seems great but I have noticed that the points I get is the same no matter how heavy the green bin is. I wonder how sensitive the scale on the truck is.
I also wonder what would happen if I bolted a huge chunk of steel to the inside of the bin, but I guess that would be cheating…
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Amanda L Grossman Reply:
August 25th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Hello!
You said it–my friend and I have figured this out as well. We always get 68-70 points, no matter what the weight, so something is wrong with the system.
I am thinking of emailing them…
Amanda L Grossman recently posted..We Are Not Going to Help Them Make Vegetable Soup out of a Stone and Water
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almostanative Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for verifying my concern. I get 68 points usually too. Being technically oriented and having watched the recycle truck in action, I don’t think it actually weighs the can. I think it just identifies whose can it is by the Radio Frequency ID plug on the can ( like EZ tag ). It just looks like a regular garbage truck painted green.
One time I was throwing away a bunch of coal since the previous owners of my house had a backyard forge. That made the regular garbage truck groan a bit but in general those high speed pincers and lifters seem pretty tough.
I hope you can persuade them to actually weigh the stuff as it would be much more motivational. Let me know if I can help.
Have a good day.
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November 4th, 2010 @ 6:09 pm
Hi Amanda,
We recently had a period where the recycle truck didn’t come for almost 3 weeks. Then my “points” were up at 72 from 68. Did yours go up too? However when I have had extremely heavy bins they did not vary significantly from when I put out light bins.
I maybe have solved the mystery of why they vary a little but not according to what a bin owner does specifically- I bet they weigh the whole truck when it gets unloaded, and then divide up the points to all the people whose green bins were registered.
Anyway thanks for all the good ideas and articles.
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Amanda L. Grossman Reply:
November 5th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Hello almostanative!
Thanks for the comment and your theory! That stinks that your recycling truck didn’t come for three weeks–did you call the company? Perhaps there is not much participation where you are? I haven’t checked my points recently, but it seems that I am getting 72 lately….
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January 14th, 2011 @ 5:36 pm
Hi Amanda,
The 3 week recycle truck hiatus was scheduled by the city because October had 5 fridays or something like that. We get a calendar of when they are coming in my part of town.
I’m pretty sure the mystery may be solved- the points are higher after longer time delays regardless of my bin’s weight. So I do think they weigh the whole truck and give an average number of points to everyone who left their bin out. After 3 weeks that weight was more etc.
This means I no longer have to carry on the experiment by putting a manhole cover in the bin.
Happy new year!
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Amanda L. Grossman Reply:
January 16th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Interesting! Thank you for following through and helping to solve the mystery. I’m up to 973 points in total!
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April 17th, 2011 @ 6:17 pm
[...] Recyclebank: The Creation of a Black Market for Trash: Now you can make “money” off of your trash…and if you don’t want it, I am sure a black market is going to be created for those who do. [...]