Ridwell began as a simple father-and-son project called Owen’s List.

Our founder, Ryan, wanted to teach his young kids — Owen, age 6, and Grant, age 2 — the values he grew up with: caring for the environment and keeping useful things out of the garbage.

Each weekend, Ryan and Owen chose one item from their basement to reuse or recycle instead of sending it to the landfill. These were things that didn’t fit into traditional curbside programs—like batteries, light bulbs, old clothes, and Styrofoam—but they knew there had to be a better way.

So they searched for solutions, sometimes far away, and soon realized they could multiply their efforts by helping neighbors too. Together, they started picking up items from their Seattle community — sharing stories and photos about where each one ended up.

What began as a family project quickly grew into a movement. Each week, pickups got bigger and bigger, and before long more than 4,000 Seattle households had joined in.

As demand grew, Ryan and Owen teamed up with Aliya, David, and Justin to launch Ridwell — building on the same simple idea: small actions, done together, can add up to real change.

Today, Ridwell is a team of more than 250 people working every day to make recycling and reuse more accessible, transparent, and impactful. What started with one family’s effort to do the right thing has become a community of thousands across the country — proving that when we work together, we can keep millions of pounds out of landfills and create a brighter future.