Eat Kashi cereal? Company wants customers to enjoy, then reach for the recycling bin

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File this under the marketing campaign category of ‘doesn’t this seem obvious?!?’: Kashi Co., the organic and natural foods company, and RecycleBank, a for-profit firm that rewards people for being green, are partnering up for a promotion that lets people earn reward coupons for eating cereal.

Starting this week, boxes of all Kashi Organic Promise biscuit cereals will carry codes that reward consumers who log onto RecycleBank and pledge to recycle the cereal containers. The codes inside boxes earn 15 points per box.

Over time, consumers can then check their ‘balance’ online and cash their points in for coupons and discounts at one of dozens of other companies that have joined up with the program, including McDonalds -- yeah, because there’s nothing that screams ‘being green’ like super-sizing my meal -- Albertsons and Bed Bath & Beyond. Or Kashi, which is already a rewards partner.

The recycling offer lasts through June 30. ‘Paper is one of the easiest materials to recycle, yet paper and paperboard make up more than 30 percent of our landfills,’ Jeff Johnson, senior nutritionist and natural lifestyle expert at Kashi, said in a statement.

He added that ‘this RecycleBank program presents a unique opportunity to help drive waste down in a way that is measurable and rewards people for helping the overall recycling cause.’

I guess the question now is, if La Jolla-based Kashi is trying to promote green living, why isn’t this program permanent? The company said it’s thinking about it and, if it’s a hit, may roll out the promotion to other products.

-- P.J. Huffstutter