Eco-rewards program RecycleBank, despite its known flaws, is a program that works for many people around the United States and in Britain.

Incentivizing home recycling on a municipal level with coupons for the mundane (buy one bottle of water, get one free) to fantastic (gift cards) would be icing on the cake for homes that consistently recycle. But not all homes do so and some towns haven't always had curbside recycling which means a commitment to one of the easiest ways to be earth-friendly isn’t present in every home. Therein lies one of the problems with RecycleBank.

The program rewards users 2.5 points for every pound of recyclables placed in the bin.  But in one version of the program each receptacle doesn’t get weighed individually. The total amount of recyclables in a community gets weighed so if you recycle everything your town permits but your neighbors never recycle you are being denied your potential maximum number of points. 

The original model was designed to use an electronic chip placed on each individual recycling can. On collection day the chip would send a signal to RecycleBank telling them that your can was being collected and the truck would weigh the can curbside to award the correct amount of points. The problem with this model was that it could encourage residents to cheat by placing heavy non-recyclable objects in the bin to boost points. If RecycleBank were to find out there would be repercussions that aren’t defined at all on the company’s website. 

RecycleBank, founded in 2005, is now seven years old and most kinks have been worked out with the company constantly looking to improve operations. Now they dole out rewards for more than just home recycling. Electronics can be mailed and recycled through Flipswap, RecycleBank’s partner, and they even offer a credit card that awards one point for every dollar spent at participating retailers.

Samantha Skey, RecycleBank’s Chief Revenue Officer, will speak during Social Media Week in New York as part of a panel called: "Green Gamification: Combining Social Media & Game Mechanics to Promote Sustainability.” Since joining RecycleBank in 2010 Skey has expanded the online rewards offered by the program by working with their top retailers and brands like Macy’s and Coca-Cola to design rewards people are willing to recycle or change actions and behaviors to win. While Skey isn’t in charge of on the ground operations she is indirectly involved through the reward design process.

It is probably largely due to Skey that registered users can now log on to RecycleBank and simply pledge to be greener by watching a short Flash presentation and answering questions. Watching a video about Coca-Cola’s Arctic Home campaign will reward a user 25 points -they don’t even ask you to buy or recycle their cans specifically. You can pledge to take shorter showers at the end of the video and there is no way for them to know whether or not you are following through with the commitment. An ever updating sidebar shows users complete with personalized profile pictures that have cashed in on these easy ways to earn. 

It’s easy right now at least. If we don’t seriously try to commit to changing our wasteful behaviors we could see a company, like RecycleBank, incentivize water usage especially in large drought-prone states. We may soon find ourselves with timers in our bathrooms ticking away as the water runs and if we fail to conserve we won’t be able to get that $10 Panera Bread gift card.