NEW YORK (May 9, 3:30 p.m. ET) — New York City is set to hire Ron Gonen, the co-founder and former CEO of recycling rewards program RecycleBank LLC, to the newly created position of deputy commissioner for recycling and sustainability.
Gonen, who co-founded RecycleBank in 2005 in Philadelphia as a way to boost recycling and help municipalities keep waste out of landfills, will be tasked with helping the city achieve the goal of Mayor Bloomberg to at least double its recycling rate to 30 percent by 2017.
The RecycleBank co-founder is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University. The appointment is expected to be officially announced later this month, according to a published report in The New York Times.
Consumers who participate in the RecycleBank program receive 2.5 reward points for each pound of material they recycle—up to a maximum of 450 points per month. They can redeem those points at more than 3,000 local and national retail, restaurant, food and beverage, health and beauty, sports and recreation, apparel, electronics, automotive and entertainment partners.
The amount of material a consumer recycles is measured through a radio-frequency identification chip imbedded in recycling containers.
RecycleBank, now headquartered in New York, currently has operations in more than 3,000 communities in the United States and the United Kingdom, and has more than 3 million people participating in its recycling rewards program.
