St. Paul company offering environmentally friendly approaches for holiday waste disposal
ST. PAUL, Minn. — What's known as the most wonderful time of the year, is also the most wasteful.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans produce 25% more trash from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day.
A company in St. Paul is helping people navigate the tricky art of holiday recycling.
Jens Narveson is the head of the St. Paul warehouse for Ridwell, a company that picks up waste that traditional curbside recycling can't typically accept.
Narveson says Ridwell takes Amazon packages and bubble wrap, and turns them into turns them into material to make decks.
The company also takes, and recycles, hard Styrofoam packing.
"It's turned into other forms of Styrofoam, so it gets turned back into that product," Narveson said.
Ridwell does not accept soft, tearable sheets of Styrofoam.
As for wrapping paper, Narveson says a traditional street pickup can take it as long as it's not metallic. Ridwell does accept Christmas lights, which are scrapped for copper. The company also recycles shopping bags.
Ridwell doesn't accept drop-offs, but offers pickups in the metro. A subscription starts at $14 dollars per month.
