One family on Bainbridge Island has begun a monthly home-pickup recycling program that collects and donates tough-to-dispose-of items for free.

It’s similar to Ridwell, a paid service that collects similarly hard-to-recycle items from subscribers’ front doors and delivers them to regional processing locations. But the foundation of BI Flashdrive is that the program and the recycling drive of the month must always be free.

Civic and national studies around the world have found that the three largest obstacles to recycling for residential communities are cost, convenience and awareness of services. Former Bainbridge High School student Roan Brumwell, his brother Bo and his mother Kathy McGowan realized they could take steps to solve these, just by running monthly drives on Bainbridge.

“Once a month, we send out an email notification to people who are on our list, and we let them know our featured free recycling program, and then we give people time to gather those items, if they have anything to contribute to this particular monthly flash drive. Then we set a date and time that we’re going to begin making our rounds,” said McGowan. “All you have to do is shoot us an email and say, ‘Hey, I have a pickup, this is my pickup location,’ and have it there by our pickup time, and that’s it, and we take care of the rest.”

Roan Brumwell was inspired to pursue more sustainable waste management options after a trip to a sneaker shop in Seattle’s U District in 2022. He reflected on the amount of resources required to make just one pair of the high-end shoes, and decided to look into ways to repurpose the items once they were through being used.

“I like the challenge of addressing problems in my community and recycling and upcycling seems to be an issue that always can be improved upon,” said Roan. “I have learned through this effort that people have lots of things they want to get rid of, but haven’t had the opportunity to find a new home for. Most people don’t want their unwanted items to end up in the trash, so they keep them around until a good opportunity presents itself.”

The team joined the Zero Waste Initiative with Sustainable Bainbridge, a nonprofit incubator on the island dedicated to sustainable and climate-friendly projects, in 2022. Now, BI Flashdrive is serving over 200 households on the island, and has donated hundreds of items to local, regional, national and global recycling drives.

“There’s so many things that are out there that people just don’t know about,” said McGowan. “It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I had no idea that you could recycle or repurpose the apples that are falling from my tree, and that West Sound Wildlife can use them. I had no idea that this bike pedal that’s been sitting around my garage (can be brought) to BikeWorks Seattle. I had no idea that this tent I don’t need anymore could be used by Northwest Hospitality.’”

Since January, the family has recycled 172 small electronics (for reclamation), 2,193 socks and undergarments (to become insulation), 1,802 books (for K-12 students in Nevada), 90 soccer cleats and 40 soccer balls (for young soccer players in Colombia), 48 boxes of women’s clothing (for restoration and reuse), about 15 dog leashes and collars (for a dog rescue in South Africa), dozens of bike parts (for Bike Works), and two carloads of baby supplies, like carseats, toys, blankets and more (for low-income families in West Seattle).

“You’ll see often when you start running down this rabbit hole, you might run into, they’ll say, ‘Sure, we will take your things, but you have to pay them for shipping or pay them for a recycling bag and that.’ Those are all great programs, but they’re not the ones that we feature, because we really are committed to the idea of accessibility,” said McGowan. “It has to be free — that’s our parameter.”

As Roan Brumwell heads to the University of Virginia, he hopes to start a similar program in Charlottesville.

“It will take some time to research the needs of the community, but if this does happen, I will probably start with unwanted dorm supplies or furnishings,” he said.

In September, BI Flashdrive is collecting denim for Blue Jeans Go Green, a project that turns old denim into pet bed inserts, industrial mattresses and thermal packaging liners. Interested individuals can sign up by emailing the family at biflashdrive@gmail.com.