Going Together Like PB&J: What's Behind Our RecycleBank Collaboration
- Feb 8, 2010
- In Action
- Libby Reder
Over the last few years, we’ve had a chance to get to know the smart people at RecycleBank. Still a fairly small company, RecycleBank has been growing faster than a wildfire, taking an age-old approach to a new problem. The problem: climate change and depleting natural resources. The approach: if you want people to do something, like recycling, reward them.
As it’s grown, RecycleBank has been focused on rewarding customers for recycling – something that most people agree is a good thing for the environment. But we found that, as we talked with them more and more, we think alike in a lot of ways. After all, recycling and reuse go together like peanut butter and jelly.
RecycleBank was first piloted in Philadelphia, PA. The idea was to help cities reduce the trash that went to landfill by increasing recycling, let households earn points for recycling, and help companies grow their business by offering rewards for which those points could be redeemed all at the same time. It was a win-win-win situation. After all, most people want to be green, but too often it seems expensive or inconvenient or uncomfortable to take the steps that we know are in the right direction.
RecycleBank flipped that idea on its head – they make it fun and downright profitable for everyone involved to be green. And they seem to have gotten something right. RecycleBank now serves over one million people in over 20 states across the country. Its growing community has facilitated—to date—an environmental impact equivalent to saving over 4.3 million trees and more than 289 millions of gallons of oil.
We knew that there must be a way to take RecycleBank’s win-win sensibility past the curbside pickup to reuse in general, and particularly to the reuse that you all fuel just by buying and selling used and vintage goods every day on eBay.com. Last week, eBay and RecycleBank teamed up to bring that idea to life.
Now, new and existing RecycleBank members can earn 50 points for registering for the eBay Green Team through RecycleBank.com. Just like if you were recycling joining our community committed to using what exists in the world today can earn you RecycleBank’s green currency. And, starting in a few weeks, you’ll be able to redeem your RecycleBank points for eBay rewards, making it easier for you to choose to reuse on eBay.com.
You’ll also notice that RecycleBank has started to pop up here on the Green Team website as well. We’ve found that we think alike, so we wanted to give you a window into some of their good green thinking. We’ll be publishing their thoughts here on Green Team Talks a couple of times a month.
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