A company that uses independent contractors to collect from its recycling customers has diverted 4 million pounds of waste from landfills and recycled nearly 2,000 tons of material since its inception in 2014, briniging more recycling to rural areas, Jeff Kart of Forbes magazine reports.
"With the cost of recycling increasing due to the Chinese ban, small towns have had their (already small) recycling budgets slashed or eliminated, forcing many of them to take such actions as reduce what materials are considered 'recyclable,' discontinue local drop-off locations and some have completely ended their curbside programs," Recyclops’s founder and CEO Ryan Smith told the magazine. "A lack of options has resulted in previously recycled materials—cardboard, paper, aluminum and more—ending up in landfills."
Recyclops and other companies like it have been compared to Uber because of the reliance on independent contractors with pickup trucks.
The company charges $10 a month for twice-monthly collection. The independent haulers gross $25 an hour, according to Smith. "To compare that to other curbside recycling services, urban recycling programs can be as cheap as $1-3 monthly and in rural areas, recycling programs prices can range from $10- $25 a month," he said, noting that in the remote city of Moab, Utah, curbside pickup costs $12 a month.
Recyclops operates in Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Arizona. Smith said he plans to expand to Texas.
"In 2018, Recyclops conducted an independent survey that included an analysis of 1,000 towns and cities across the U.S. and found that 34 million rural and peri-urban homes lack access to convenient affordable recycling,” Smith told Forbes. "The current problems with our recycling system as a whole will not be solved until recycling is made accessible and affordable to rural towns and communities in this country, in addition to large urban cities."
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| (Recyclops photo) |
Recyclops and other companies like it have been compared to Uber because of the reliance on independent contractors with pickup trucks.
The company charges $10 a month for twice-monthly collection. The independent haulers gross $25 an hour, according to Smith. "To compare that to other curbside recycling services, urban recycling programs can be as cheap as $1-3 monthly and in rural areas, recycling programs prices can range from $10- $25 a month," he said, noting that in the remote city of Moab, Utah, curbside pickup costs $12 a month.
Recyclops operates in Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Arizona. Smith said he plans to expand to Texas.
"In 2018, Recyclops conducted an independent survey that included an analysis of 1,000 towns and cities across the U.S. and found that 34 million rural and peri-urban homes lack access to convenient affordable recycling,” Smith told Forbes. "The current problems with our recycling system as a whole will not be solved until recycling is made accessible and affordable to rural towns and communities in this country, in addition to large urban cities."
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