RecycleBank®, an international incentives program that rewards individuals for recycling, has joined forces with Waste Connections of Colorado to dramatically increase household recycling volumes in 10 Denver suburbs and in Colorado Springs. Already a success in 20 states and in the U.K., RecycleBank encourages people to recycle by rewarding households with points for their efforts. These points are redeemable at local and national retailers, restaurants, grocers, and more.

Colorado is the first state in the Rocky Mountain Region to feature the RecycleBank program, and Waste Connections of Colorado is the only hauler to offer the program in the state. "Partnering with RecycleBank is a great way to protect our environment, invigorate our local economies, keep our communities clean, and deliver meaningful, everyday savings to our customers,” says Waste Connections central regional vice president Phil Rivard. “Everybody wins."

Over the next month, new 96-gal recycling carts will be delivered to Waste Connections customers in suburbs north of Denver and in Colorado Springs and in the surrounding cities of Fountain, Monument, and Peyton/Falcon. The recycling carts include an ID tag that matches the cart to the household address and account number. Waste Connections trucks, retrofitted with special technology, track recycling activity, and the amount recycled is converted into RecycleBank Points. Similar to frequent flier programs, the more a family recycles, the more RecycleBank Points each household earns.

RecycleBank Points are redeemable for rewards, gift cards, groceries, and products from national reward partners such as Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Dick's Sporting Goods, CVS/pharmacy, and Bed, Bath & Beyond, as well as from a host of local participating businesses in more than 20 categories. There is also an option to donate points to local school environmental programs and to nonprofit organizations.

"By encouraging households to recycle with the added incentive of RecycleBank rewards, Waste Connections of Colorado collects more recyclables, reducing waste otherwise destined for landfill disposal," Rivard says. "Moreover, it's easier than ever for residents to recycle—the new program brings with it single-stream recycling, in which households can place all acceptable recycling materials into one cart without having to sort paper, plastic, tin, and glass separately."

RecycleBank services more than 1 million people across 20 states. By cumulative recycling efforts, those households have recycled more than 300,000 tons of material, saving more than 194 million gallons of oil and close to 3 million trees.

Watch “An Introduction to RecycleBank” below.