RecycleBank Adds Chicago to Program

RecycleBank has announced a partnership with the city of Chicago for its recycling rewards program.

This program is designed to encourage additional recycling participation and compliment the city's transition to the Blue Cart Program recycling program, already in place in more than 241,000 households in Chicago. Chicago is the first city in Illinois to deploy the RecycleBank program.

Chicago selected 10,000 households in three wards for Phase 1 of the program. These areas were selected for of a variety of reasons with the purpose of enabling Chicago and RecycleBank to evaluate the increase in recycling and expansion of service. These areas have the longest data collection from the Blue Cart recycling program and they have a good mix of single family homes and multi-unit buildings. They also selected routes within those areas that produced lesser quantities of recyclables. This ensures that our test will illustrate more clearly that the incentive system has the desired results. Each Blue Cart in the pilot area will be retrofitted with an ID tag that matches the Blue Cart to the household address and account number, while tracking recycling activity. Upon activating their account with RecycleBank, either online or by phone, the household will begin to earn RecycleBank Points.

Along with a myriad of national retailers, Chicago’s RecycleBank program is adding several local opportunities. In one program, the Chicago White Sox and their partner Comcast will give away two free tickets to the first 200 households who activate their RecycleBank accounts. The reward is valid for two free upper deck reserved seat tickets and is redeemable for select 2009 home games based on availability.

Additionally, Leona’s will provide every household in the program a $5 gift card to their restaurants upon account activation.

The steps following the Phase 1 field test are to roll out fully in all three wards’ 38,000 households. "Through education, community outreach and the use of our Recycling Block Captain Program, we are confident that we will see great results with RecycleBank," said Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. "It’s important that residents understand that they must do their part when it comes to recycling and preserving resources."