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"Name: Recyclebank\nBig Idea: Recyclebank gives the planet a rewards system using gamification techniques.\nWhy It's Working: Recyclebank rewards environmentally friendly actions with points, which are a monetary incentive to recycle. You can also compare your behavior with others on leaderboards in the Recyclebank Ecosystem.\nRecyclebank figured out gamification before gamification was gamification.\nWhen Recyclebank was founded six years ago, no one had heard of gamification, the concept of rewarding non-game actions with points, scores or other rewards. Thanks to Foursquare, the popular geo-social network that has gamified exploration, many more of us are familiar with the term.\n\"I think it's interesting how the word 'gamification' \u2014 the application of gaming techniques into non-gaming environments \u2014 is in vogue,\" Ian Yolles, chief sustainability officer at Recyclebank, tells Mashable. \"These techniques make activities more engaging and more interesting to users, and in doing so, it helps surface the process of behavior change.\"\nElements of gamification, such as points and rewards, were embedded in Recyclebank from the start, says Yolles. The Recyclebank Ecosystem, as it is now called, rewards you with points for taking online and offline green actions, once it's received confirmation. The Ecosystem now even includes a leaderboard, so you can compare your actions to others in your community.\nIn other words, Recyclebank has turned an eco-conscious lifestyle into a game.\n\"Gaming elements make recycling easy for people to relate to, it provides motivation and it helps put behavior in context of the larger community,\" Yolles says. \"It's a sort of emotional engagement \u2014 and it's fun.\"\nThough Recyclebank started by focusing on curbside recycling, there are now tons of ways to earn points: unplugging appliances, choosing greener products, pledging to take shorter showers, and making green travel decisions, such as carpooling and taking public transportation. You even earn points for purchasing Barnes &amp; Noble Nook books.\nYou can then redeem points through partner retailers and brands, including Barnes &amp; Noble, Preserve, MillionTreesNYC, thredUP, Earth911, Rent the Runway and UncommonGoods.\nRecyclebank is currently active in more than 300 communities across the U.S. Whenever Recyclebank enters a new community, it forges relationships with local businesses so that they become vendors where users can redeem points.\nRecyclebank's latest partnership with sustainable consumer goods company Preserve is an iPhone app, Gimme 5, launched in February. The app places Preserve's Gimme 5 program into the Recyclebank Ecosystem, rewarding users who check in at locations that recycle No. 5 plastics (the types often found in yogurt containers). Unlike plastics No. 1 and No. 2, No. 5 is accepted in less than 48% of municipalities and rarely recycled for new uses.\nTo date, Preserve has collected 200 tons of No. 5 plastic yogurt, hummus and cottage cheese containers at Whole Foods markets across the country. Preserve turns recycled Stoneyfield yogurt cartons into toothbrushes, for example, which are sold at retailers such as Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and the Park Slope Food Coop.\nMashable partnered with Venture Studio to interview Recyclebank co-founder Ron Gonen. Watch the video above to learn more about Recyclebank.\nDo you participate in Recyclebank? Would a rewards program encourage you to recycle more?\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, aluxum\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/03/27/recyclebank/>