*The RFID system is on the trash collector rather than the recycled items, but the pay-consumers-for-trash system is an interesting twist.
http://www.govtech.com/dc/articles/733246
Nov 11, 2009, By Elaine Rundle
(...)
Incentive-based recycling may have a strange ring to it – especially to the ears of city officials – but that's what some cities are doing to discourage citizens from throwing away recyclables. By reducing the amount of waste cities must dump at landfills, they save money in tipping fees while encouraging residents to be environmental stewards. Tipping fees are charges paid to landfills based on the volume of waste.
Adding an incentive to recycling was the idea Ron Gonen had in 2005 when he co-founded RecycleBank – a program that tracks how many pounds a household recycles in order to offer incentives, like coupons and discounts at local businesses and restaurants, to residents.
Gonen, also RecycleBank's CEO, said the inspiration behind the program was developing a business model that showed people that being environmentally conscious was not just the right thing to do, but also a good way to save money.
RecycleBank installs bar codes or radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on recycling carts, which enable them to be scanned and linked to the coordinating address. Participating cities' recycling pickup trucks are retrofitted with a mechanical arm that includes a scale and bar code/RFID scanner. "It picks up the cart, reads the chip, identifies how much your home recycled, and that's translated into RecycleBank Points," Gonen said. "They can log on to our Web site [www.recyclebank.com], and it's just like looking at your bank statement: It tells you how much they recycled each week and how many RecycleBank Points they earned."
Gonen said more than 75 cities participate in the program and service was recently launched in the United Kingdom.
Recycling Evolves
In June, Westland, Mich., implemented RecycleBank as its first curbside recycling program and has already found a significant increase in how much its citizens recycle. "The last couple years we have had a drop-off recycling center program that was averaging about 90 tons a month of recyclables, and that had pretty much leveled off," said the city's mayor, William Wild. "Our first month with RecycleBank picking up recyclables at the curb, that number went up to 550 tons."...
