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RecycleBank

RecycleBank is a business idea that’s ultimate success depends on a long-term change in consumer attitudes about recycling. In order to help hasten that attitudinal change, RecycleBank rewards recycling households while establishing profitable long-term relationships with municipalities.

Recycling Loyalty

The power of recycling is turning a linear process – product design, manufacture, and one time use – into a cyclical one. The linear process creates then destroys value. In the cyclical process the value is extended and in some cases increased.

“Today we are recognized for revolutionizing the way people view recycling. Long-term, my goal is to revolutionize the way people and companies view consumption.”

Ron Gonen
CEO and Co-Founder
RecycleBank

RecycleBank works between households and municipalities. Cities pay RecycleBank a cut of the savings generated by diverting waste from the landfill. For instance, if a city currently sends 100,000 tons of waste to the landfill per year at $70 per ton, and RecycleBank gets people to recycle and diverts half of the waste stream, the city saves $3.5 million. RecycleBank negotiates long-term contracts with cities to get paid from what’s saved.

When householders recycle, it benefits the city, RecycleBank and the environment. To ensure that everybody wins, RecycleBank makes sure recycling benefits the householders as well. Householders are rewarded with coupons based on the weight of their bins when scanned and weighed by the sanitation trucks. For every pound a household earns 2.5 RecycleBank points, redeemable as coupons with the likes of Kraft, Sears, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Foot Locker, CVS pharmacy, Petco, Target, and Method.

RecycleBank has a long-term strategy to expand from it’s base in Philadelphia, and the mid-Atlantic states, into Midwestern states. Recycling rates have more than doubled in every community RecycleBank has entered.

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