About

Recycling programs reimagined

In 2018, we were among a group of Chicagoans who wanted a city-wide curbside composting program. But Chicago was already struggling with its expensive and contaminated single-stream recycling program.

We built Block Bins to help our concerned neighbors skip the government bureaucracy and crowdfund an affordable and effective curbside compost program.

Now we want to help your city create recycling programs for any material.

Mission & Vision

Recycle anything, anywhere, with bins you can share

We believe compost and recycling options should be accessible and ubiquitous.

Our mission is to make compost & recycling options accessible and affordable in cities and suburbs.

Why Block Bins?

Not to dump on single-stream recycling, buuut...

Block Bins is a dedicated-stream & shared-bin recycling strategy, that solves the problems of traditional single-stream recycling.

Traditional Single-stream

Block Bins Dedicated-Stream

Accepted material list is confusing and too limited.

One material per bin removes ambiguity and confusion.

Fails to recycle most plastics and other common materials.

Dedicated collection enables new recycling methods. E.g plastic recycling can recycle ALL plastics.

Careless users AND wish-cycling cause contamination.

Users go a little out of their way to use the bin, filtering out carelessness.

Sorting co-mingled recyclables is expensive.

Pre-sorted streams are cleaner and save more materials. Some materials can even be reused, which is better than recycling.

High contamination leads to poor overall recycling rates.

Virtually no contamination leads to high recycling rates.

Many individual bins

Shared Bins

Introducing new recycling programs like Composting is often infeasably expensive.

Lower individual pricing becomes available when more people participate.

Too many bins -> crowded city alleyways.

No more mostly-empty bins everywhere. Minimize the number of bins in alleyways.

Time-intensive to collect all of them.

Service an entire block in one quick pickup.

Collection costs more than the materials are worth, meaning higher recycling bills.

Efficient collections makes service viable.

Mandating participation from people who won’t recycle correctly is detrimental to everyone.

Opt-in means participants recycle intentionally and without contamination.

Must pay for an entire container.

Pay-as-you-throw: Only pay for the space you need.

Our team

Dane Christianson

Dane is the founder and CEO of Block Bins. BS in Mechanical Engineering from Illinois Tech. Dane created Block Bins because he lives in Chicago and wanted a curbside composting program that was affordable and convenient.

Kyle Preuss

Kyle is the CMO of Block Bins. He has a degree in Advertising from the University of Illinois. Kyle joined Block Bins because he was used to composting in California, and wanted to bring that experience to Chicago.

Our values

Community

Bringing neighbors together block by block to make recycling more efficient and to help solve an important environmental issue.

Sustainability

Diverting food waste from our landfills, reducing pests and keeping your block cleaner while creating healthy soil for your community.

Accessibility

Eliminating the barriers to urban composting by ensuring convenience and affordability for everyone on every block.