Ridwell, based in Seattle, says it is developing a customer base in Portland, where residents are willing to pay to have hard-to-recycle items picked up at their homes. The alternative is to take these items, like light bulbs and plastic film, to drop-off sites.
Ridwell
Roughly 20,000 households in the Portland metro area are customers of Ridwell, a Seattle-based startup that offers a monthly subscription service to pick up items like batteries, light bulbs and plastic clamshell containers that typically can’t go inside curbside recycling bins.
Last month, Ridwell filed a federal lawsuit against Washington County, alleging the county had illegally forced it to cease operating in unincorporated parts of the county. Meanwhile, Ridwell is experiencing some competition from the third-largest garbage and recycling services company in North America which began offering its own, add-on service for hard to recycle items for customers in Vancouver, Washington.
Joining us is Caleb Weaver, vice president of public affairs at Ridwell, and Derek Ranta, the director of the RecyclePlus program at Waste Connections of Washington, Inc. Washington County told “Think Out Loud” that it cannot comment on pending litigation and therefore declined to participate in this interview. It also alerted us to updates to its recycling collection services in unincorporated Washington County.
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