There's a new 'greedy' way to go green, and St. Joseph County may soon become part of it.

The St. Joseph County Solid Waste Management District Board is considering a program that would provide financial rewards for curbside recycling customers to contribute even more materials.

If some airlines give away frequent flier miles, and some credit card companies offer cash back programs, why shouldn't there be a good old fashioned gimmick that would allow someone to cash in on a trip to the curb?

"It awards points to people for their recycling activities," said Atul Nanda of RecycleBank. "Based on those points that people earn, they can redeem them for rewards that they can use in their local economy."

For instance, Target will knock five dollars off a $50 purchase for a specified number of points, according to the RecycleBank website.

"On average most people are earning the equivalent of $240 per rewards per year, which more than offsets any fees they might be paying for their trash or recycling programs," said Nanda.

In some communities, RecycleBank says it will keep track of individual households and award points based on the amount of recycled materials left at the curb.

In St. Joseph County the proposal calls for a community-based approach. Points would be awarded by looking at the performance of groups of customers along specific pick-up routes.

"We'd take a look at the weights, how many tons of recyclables or pounds of recyclables were generated by that collection truck and everybody on that specific route would earn the same number of points," said Nanda.

South Bend Mayor Stephen Luecke was one member of the St. Joseph County Solid Waste District Management Board who liked what he heard about the program at today's meeting. "We've kind of played all of our cards that we can from the traditional solid waste management side so to be able to hook into a program that provides rewards to people for doing more recycling makes a lot of sense," Luecke said.

After all, St. Joseph County curbside recyclers now have 96-gallon wheeled totes to replace the 18-gallon open bins they used to use.

Perhaps a push to actually use the extra capacity couldn't hurt, especially when you consider that St. Joseph County recyclers tend to look like lightweights when compared to communities that have already adopted the RecycleBank program.

"Our history in other communities in the east coast and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, we're recycling over 1200 pounds per household. Right now in St. Joseph County we're around 350-pounds per household per year. So we believe we can more than double St. Joseph County, our average is between 800 and 900 pounds of recyclables per household," said Nanda.

RecycleBank has traditionally made its money by taking a cut of the sale of the additional materials a program brings in. That's money the communities wouldn't see otherwise.

Lately, that approach has taken a beating as the prices being paid for recyclable materials have plunged.

Today, RecycleBank wanted a $270,000 upfront payment to do business in St. Joseph County and some on the waste management board balked.

"I thought it was a reasonable fee," said South Bend Mayor Stephen Luecke. "But I think board members really needed some more time to digest that, to look at it."

The proposed contract with RecycleBank has been tabled until the waste management board's March meeting.