When Ridwell Express launched its national mail-in recycling program for hard-to-recycle plastics in 2018, La Conner resident Lynne Beebe didn’t hesitate — she became the first customer in the country to sign up.

Beebe had a personal connection to the company. She taught at an elementary school in Bellevue with the mother of Ridwell co-founder and CEO Ryan Metzger, and the two stayed in touch over the years. That friendship gave Beebe an early glimpse into the startup’s mission.

Metzger recently met with community members at the Civic Garden Club in La Conner to share a bit about the company. He started Ridwell as a neighborhood project to keep everyday plastics out of the trash. Since then, the company has grown to recycle more than 13.7 million pounds of plastic and now partners with more than 200 manufacturers that reuse the materials for specific purposes. During his presentation, Metzger provided examples, like how plastic film gets turned into outdoor lumber by Trex. Another example is Hydroblox, which turns snack wrappers and other food packaging into landscaping drainage material. And then there’s Metzger’s wallet, which is made of old bicycle tubes.

Metzger said the company aims to help millions of people divert more waste from landfills by expanding the types of materials it collects, reaching more users, and offering better tools and resources to show the impact of reuse and recycling, “so that people know the good that can come from giving their old things new life with Ridwell instead of burying it in the ground for generations to come,” he said.

Ridwell created the mail-in recycling option to serve customers outside its pickup zones. That’s the service Beebe — and now about 40 others in La Conner — use to keep difficult-to-recycle plastics out of landfills and support more sustainable waste solutions. The Ridwell Express service accepts items like snack wrappers, bubble mailers, plastic film, and resealable pouches that most other recycling programs won’t accept. These materials often clog machinery at recycling plants or lack a viable market for reuse, which means they typically end up in landfills or as litter.

That’s not a small problem. The U.S. recycled only 5 – 6% of its post-consumer plastic waste in 2021, according to a 2022 report by Beyond Plastics and The Last Beach Cleanup. Many plastic items are difficult to recycle by design, or recyclers struggle to find buyers for the material.

For more information, visit express.ridwell.com.

Note: Lynn Beebe is president of the La Conner Community News board.

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Nancy K. Crowell: nancy@laconnercommunitynews.org. Nancy is a photographer, photo editor, and a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News. Nancy has also been a Master Gardener for 10 years.