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Bike Shops Turning Trash into Useable
Parts
By Abbie Jarmon
No doubt, bicycling helps the environment by cutting down on the
number of cars clogging the streets, and further efforts such as
more bike lanes, mass transit and improved driving laws are making
it easier for people to choose bicycling. However, bikes can also
be a detriment to the environment—filling landfills with perfectly
usable parts.
But what's trash to some is a way of survival for others, and a
number of area organizations are lowering the amount bikes contribute
to the waste stream by taking in parts and turning them around for
communities.
Working Bikes
Cooperative (www.workingbikes.org 312-421-5048) has set up numerous
drop-off locations around the region for Chicagoans to donate bikes
and parts, and volunteers from the community can organize their
own bike drives under the guidance of Working Bikes. The parts are
sent to areas where bicycles are the primary means of transportation.
" About half of our bikes come straight from the scrap yard.
The rest are from bike donations. Annually we ship 5,000, we give
away about 1,000 locally and we sell about 2,000 bikes, which pays
for shipping," said founder Lee Ravenscroft, who incorporated
Working Bikes in 2003. That means 8,000 bikes are lifted from the
waste stream annually through the efforts of Working Bikes.
Similarly, Blackstone
Bicycle Works (www.experimentalstation.org/blackstone 773-241-5458)
teaches youth about small business operation through a bike shop
stocked with donated bikes and parts. Youths work at the store repairing
bikes, helping customers and doing data entry. Accumulated work
hours go toward parts, locks and eventually entire bikes. Blackstone
Bicycle Work takes donations of bikes, parts and tools for use at
the shop.
Projects like Working Bikes Cooperative and the Blackstone Bicycle
Works find a way to reuse bike waste by directing it where it's
actually needed—expending no additional energy or resources
but the effort it takes to drop it off.
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