ATLANTA — It’s the most wonderful -- but also wasteful -- time of the year. During the holidays, Atlanta residents send an extra 25% of trash to landfills.
On America Recycles Day, one new Atlanta company is trying to change that. Ridwell launched in the city this summer and offers a first-of-its-kind door pickup of hard-to-recycle materials.
Think your Oreo and candy wrappers need to be tossed in the trash? Think again.
Think your old house keys from three apartments ago need to be tossed in the trash? Think again.
Styrofoam and packing peanuts from last year's holiday gifts? You can recycle those, too.
There are few recycling centers where you can take these hard-to-recycle materials — but it’s not convenient.
For Kristin Boehm, it was a no-brainer when she heard about a new company that would solve the issue of niche recycling.
"You know, one thing I'll say is that it used to be prior to Ridwell, there was almost a little bit of guilt associated with throwing something out and ultimately putting it in a landfill when you knew it could be recycled, but you just didn't have the means, you didn't have the access," Boehm said. "And so Ridwell has mitigated that guilt. And because they've done such a good job with educating about what you can recycle and their convenience, it's really maximized what I can recycle and my motivation to recycle."
The bi-weekly pickup is taken to a warehouse where it’s sorted and packed up and, later... finds a new life.
The Atlanta warehouse operations manager, Jackie Dorage, said they strive to give everything possible another life. They find as many local companies as possible to repurpose or recycle items collected.
We audit all of these companies, so out of everything we collect from our members, 97% gets made into something new or reused," Dorage explained. "That's a really high percentage that we're really proud of."
The sorting process is quite labor-intensive. They look through every bag and item collected to make sure it can be recycled.
"Our amazing warehouse employees sort through everything. So they look at the material, and they determine if it's a little too dirty or if it's in the wrong category," Dorage said. "It was put in the wrong bag, for example, and they just put it where it should go and kind of assess the material to make sure that it's the top quality that we can get to that ship off to be made into something new."
"And the things that we end up not being able to use, it's either because it's too dirty or it's something that actually can't be recycled, which we call wish recycling," Dorage explained. "So things that unfortunately have to end up in the landfill for now. But once we find a company that takes it, we'll jump on it. "
Since its launch this summer, Atlanta members have kept nearly 1,100 pounds of batteries out of landfills, and nearly 7,000 pounds of clothing have been recycled.
For Boehm, the underlying feeling of knowing she kept these items out of the landfill is a moment of pride.
"If we're going to have a sustainable, it's really now almost imperative that we need to minimize the damage and the impact on our natural resources," Boehm said. "And so recycling and diverting things from landfill is just one means of minimizing that that environmental stress and hopefully ensuring access both short term and long term to things like clean air, unpolluted water and healthy soil."
They also partner with local nonprofits to collect other items in need -- like this month's collection bin of winter coats and jackets heading to Atlanta Mission.
Katrina Dantism, director of program support service with Atlanta Mission, said the warm weather apparel comes at a critical time around the holidays.
"Atlanta Mission is very excited to partner with Bridwell because they want to breathe new life into products," Dantism said. "We breathe new life into people that are experiencing homelessness, offering transformational services for them to be able to heal and recover from the cycle and trauma that they may have experienced leading to their homelessness."
Atlanta Mission also accepts donations at its location on Bolton Road, and they have a need for several clothing and personal hygiene items right now, including the highest need for plus-size undergarments and outerwear right now.
Other organizations Ridwell has partnered with include PAWS Atlanta, in which they collected dog toys, FODAC, and others.
Since expanding to the Atlanta market this summer, they have well over 400 subscribers. They hope more Atlantans join the movement. They continue expanding their pickup footprint across the city as the year comes to a close.