Bottom Line: If You're in Ridwell's Service Areas, Try Ridwell
Ridwell bills itself as the eco-friendly waste management solution designed for sustainable living. But does it live up to the hype? My answer is a definite YES, it does!
With plans starting at just $14/month, Ridwell offers convenient bi-weekly pickup of various items, including clothes, batteries, and more, helping you divert waste from landfills. Available in major cities like Atlanta, San Francisco, and Seattle, Ridwell provides a 14" x 14" recycling bin, with options for overcapacity.
Ridwell accepts a variety of items and everything is picked up from your doorstep bi-weekly. My experience echoes that of many others I talked to “IRL”, and on sites like the Los Angeles Times, NextDoor, Reddit, and countless others: It helps reduce your garbage output overall while allowing you to get rid of things you may have otherwise felt guilty or hesitant to send to the landfill.
If you're outside of Ridwell's service areas, you can express interest in getting Ridwell on their website. As mentioned on Reddit, you can also search online for something like "plastic film pickup [name of your city]” to see if there is a similar service where you live.
| Platform | Ridwell |
|---|---|
| Cost | * Classic: $14/ month * Plastic Plus: $18/ month * Unlimited: $24/ month |
| Clothing Bag Size |
Bin is 14" x 14" size Can fill up to bin capacity Overcapacity for an extra fee (free with Unlimited plan) |
| Locations | Metro Atlanta, Austin, San Francisco/ Bay Area, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portland, and Seattle only |
|
Items Accepted |
Clothes, shoes, linens, textiles, cloth shopping bags, purses Plastic film Batteries Light bulbs Multi-layer plastic Styrofoam And more depending on your plan! Washed items only |
| Rewards | The positive feeling of diverting a lot of different types of waste from the landfill; likely benefit of lower garbage/ city recycling bills |
|
Pickup Cadence |
Every 2 Weeks |
At a glance: Ridwell Stats
Do I Need Ridwell?
If you’re like me and initially wondering, Will I have enough recycling to justify bi-weekly pickups? I’m here to tell you, the answer is almost certainly YES. Unless you’re already a minimalist expert, odds are good that you can recycle more than you think.
That’s because they not only accept your destroyed underwear and dog towels but everything else you might be holding onto:
- Clothing and textiles of all types (the main benefit that got me to subscribe!)
- Corks
- A destroyed cell phone
- Bubble wrap
- Lids from plastic bottles
- Chip bags
- Clamshell containers
- Frayed phone chargers
- Old art supplies
- Pet supplies like broken leashes and bowls
- Store receipts
- And on and on (see a more complete list here)
Is Ridwell Expensive?
Your membership fee goes toward picking up your items bi-weekly and the fees for submitting your recyclables to certified partners. With a base plan of $14/ month, it’s a feasible option for most households. That's important because being socially and environmentally conscious shouldn't be a privilege.
Is Ridwell a Good Value?
Ridwell is a rapidly expanding startup, and they have (or likely have) negotiated bulk rates with partners that would make individual household costs a lot lower than if each household submitted recyclables individually.
They also save subscribers the time-consuming task of having to travel to each recycling facility individually, and of having to research the potential options for recycling every possible thing.
The time and costs associated with recycling items that aren’t widely accepted by city facilities deter most households from recycling those items at all. Plus they recycle many things users wouldn’t normally think to even research, like art supplies. So Ridwell provides many members with the value of recycling and extending the life cycle of items that would otherwise head to the landfill.
Which Subscription Option Is Best?
Plans start at $14 per month, which is a complete plan in and of itself. It includes a choosable Featured Category for special items in each pickup, allowing you to save up rarer items in the electronics, corks, or bottle caps categories until you’re ready to select that category for pickup. A rotating "Special Category" was also included when I subscribed, which is how we recycled items like art supplies, pet supplies, and receipts.
Adding styrofoam, clamshells, or other materials, will net you an extra fee. Multi-layer plastic isn’t included in this tier.
This is a great place to start if you want to test out the service or aren’t sure how much waste your family produces. For instance, if you find yourself with a lot of styrofoam, multi-layer plastic, and clamshells every week, you may want to consider an upgrade.
The mid-tier plan is probably the best value for most households.
Multi-layer plastic is included, which isn’t picked up at all in the lower-tier plan. Multi-layer plastic is a huge category (if you’re like my household anyway) because it includes all food packaging. Woah eye-opener! We had SO MANY corn chip bags, bread bags, snack bags, single-use zipper bags, condiment bags, etc., that it caused us to re-think everything we were doing in the kitchen.
The Unlimited Plan is the Mac Daddy plan, and you should feel totally at peace with subscribing at this level. Our household is only 2 people + dogs, but we started with this because of how much styrofoam, clothing/ towels, and multi-layered plastic we had. Starting at the top tier made sense for us because we were already paying more per month to recycle just clothing (with For Days/ Trashie), so getting Ridwell Unlimited was essentially paying less for more frequent pickups of many, many more recyclable items.
That said, the $24 per month price point is starting to brink on unaffordable for many people, given that in most cities in the service area this would basically be another weekly garbage pickup. The styrofoam was what got us, though. After a few months, we cut out styrofoam completely and were able to downgrade.
Getting Started with Ridwell
After posting on Instagram about Wishcycling, my sister told me about Ridwell, but where I lived before was not in a supported location yet. By Winter 2023, my neighborhood in West Los Angeles had Ridwell signs all over, so I thought the odds were good to become a member.
Getting Ridwell was simple: I entered my zip code on the website and chose my plan. I chose the Unlimited plan since I was concerned that we would have so much waste. Then I downloaded the app and arranged the date of our first pickup. Two weeks before that date, the Ridwell box appeared in the designated spot, with cloth bags inside to sort our different types of recyclables.
The Ridwell Experience
After just one pickup, we had rid ourselves of a drawer full of old batteries and lightbulbs, and a box of multi-layer plastic that was outside waiting to be re-used in mailers.
Plus, we started to pay more attention to things like packaging and reusability. In short, the cost of the service quickly paid for itself. Extra benefits include that they gave us a responsible way to get rid of things we wouldn’t otherwise expect to be recyclable. (I mean, we got rid of old dried-up paint tubes and broken photo frames!)
The amount of clothing that could be hauled away was quite high, especially since you could place bags outside the box with the Unlimited plan. And everything was hauled away bi-weekly, so we didn't need to let clothing waste accumulate for a full month. Ultimately, realizing that I could recycle just as much clothing for a lower cost than Trashie already made Ridwell for me.
What happened next is that our need for garbage pickup was substantially reduced and our bill was much lower. By being more mindful of the Ridwell categories generally, including plastic clamshells, styrofoam, plastic film, and multi-layer plastic, we reduced our overall waste substantially as well. Both the environment and our wallets were positively impacted by Ridwell.
Between composting with Lomi and Ridwell recycling, we were able to halve our trash pickup schedule in about a month.
Ridwell is amazing. I really can't emphasize this enough. If you live in one of the eight supported metro areas, subscribe to Ridwell right away! Sadly we no longer live in a service area, but I am hopeful that service areas will expand with increased demand.