Going Green, Not Just in the Garden

A while back—I think just over a year ago—Cincinnati residents all got great huge green rolling bins for recycling, and the city’s recycling program changed from weekly pickup to every other week. I was not a happy camper about the changes to the program, mostly because the marketing seemed to suggest that it was good to fill that giant bin with recycling; you could even get prizes, it seemed, for how much you stuffed in that bin.

I’m all for recycling, but the whole point is to make less waste, either to be recycled or shipped off to a landfill. Those big 96-L containers and a kind of “contest” mentality about how much you recycled just didn’t make sense to me. Well, eventually I was able to trade in my gigantic bin for a much smaller and more manageable 35-L green container. It fits just about two old recycling bins full of stuff, and since the recycling truck comes around every other week now, the size works fine for me.

Then, in talking to some folks from Price Hill Will, I discovered that they don’t actually weigh what you’ve recycled each week to figure out the “reward points” you win. If your bin is out and it has stuff in it, it records that you’ve recycled, and that’s all. So, I calmed down a bit about them encouraging you to buy more stuff just to recycle the containers.

But then I went to the Recyclebank website to check into how the points and rewards system works. Another bummer; it seemed like all they offered was discount coupons on . . . yes, you guessed it . . . buying MORE stuff. This just seemed so counterproductive to me, I kind of forgot about the whole thing, though I definitely kept recycling, putting out my small bin every two weeks with newspapers and some bottles and cans, and flattened cardboard food boxes.

Then, the other day, someone was telling me about how great the Recyclebank rewards program was, and though I disagreed, I decided to take another look at it. Well, what do you know, they finally had a recycling reward that didn’t involve buying more stuff—and in fact, encouraged another green action, taking public transportation.

I seem to have quite a lot of points, and I traded in a thousand of my points for six free Metro bus rides, which I will definitely use. They are supposed to be mailing me some kind of vouchers—I’m waiting to see exactly how easy they are to use. It will be another bummer if they aren’t something I can use directly on the bus for a free ride, but I’m hoping they’ll be simple to use.

Six rides on Metro would cost $10.50; I probably have accumulated enough recycling points to get at least three more batches of six rides. That’s $42 in free transportation downtown to see a show, visit the library or Contemporary Art Museum, or eat at Arnold’s and listen to some good music. Now, that’s a reward program I like!