Scott Kaufman Helps Pioneer Innovative Recycling Program RecycleBank
03/15/2006
In his spare time, doctoral candidate Scott Kaufman has helped to launch an innovative new program to increase household recycling called RecycleBank.The program has been operating in Philadelphia since 2005 and is planning to expand into communities throughout the Northeast U.S.Here’s how it works: Residents are given a recycling bin with a computer chip embedded in it; garbage trucks are retrofitted to include a scale and a scanner; residents put their recyclables in the bin; the truck comes by and scans and weighs the bin, recording the amount that each household recycles. Residents are then rewarded with “RecycleBank Dollars,” which they can use to shop at over 150 partnering businesses, including Starbucks, Home Depot, Whole Foods, Patagonia, and many local businesses.
Scott was the lead author of BioCycle’s “State of Garbage in America” report in 2004. (BioCycle is one of the leading waste industry journals, and the “State of Garbage” is an annual survey of waste management practices in all 50 states.) At the time, Ron Gonen, who along with Patrick Fitzgerald cofounded RecycleBank, was a student at Columbia’s School of Business. He contacted Scott after the article was published, and Scott joined the company shortly thereafter as research director.