http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/specialized-launch-carbon-recycling-and-sustainability-initiative-30404

“The cycling industry uses massive amounts of the material,” said Edgecumbe. “However, established methods of take-back and reprocessing have yet to be created. We all benefit from pulling together on critical issues like this one. Therefore, we’re requesting the formation of a cycling industry coalition to lead the recycling of carbon fiber.”

Interesting news. I hope more manufacturers get involved.

Ignoring the products that are so well designed they will last 100 years ;)…..how many g or Kg of obsolete Carbon Fibre products do YOU have knocking about already?

Just a broken bottle cage here, so far

None here. Never had anything CF break. Never had anything CF. 16st+ doesn’t lend itself to lightweight kit!

A 11 year old Easton seatpost, thought I’d better retire it a year or so ago, as it didn’t fit the new frame 😈
Quite happy to hang on to it as memorabilia though

Edit: surprisingly that post took 16st or more (kitted up 😉 ) for 7 years of its working life (all FS use though)

Thanks for pointing out the article. Will read it properly later but to answer a your comment on how much obsolete CF people have lying around I think there may be a misunderstanding (maybe the article is not very clear, have not read it all yet) but one of the biggest problems in any composite production is waste from the production itself.

Bikes are made out of pre-preg which is basically fibres with the resin alread on and bought as rolls. They are then cut up by hand or machine to templates to enable them to be formed at the correct fibre orientation. Best way to think of it is cutting out cookie shapes from rolled dough. Unfortunately, unlike cookie dough (or metal) you can’t just squidge up the scrap and re-use it. The waste is normally cured off and sent to land fill.

There is a big move in the Aerospace industry to try and re-process this scrap material. Normally this involves digesting (acid) or burning off the resin and them milling the carbon fibres up into short lengths to be mixed into polymers or concrete etc as short fibre reinforcement.

There is also the problem of end of life components which is much worse when things are sold to the public as there is no control over what the public do with the waste carbon fibre.

Hope that helps clear up anyone wondering why it’s a big deal.

Excellent post andy, that explains another aspect of the problem very well (the bit we as bikers don’t see). Of course a plus of using carbon in say bike frames is you get near net shapes, so no welding or fasteners required. But the factories make rolls of CF, not bike shapes, so as you say a lot must be wasted during that process.

If they reprocess as you say, and as Specialized say, then it’s still not truly ‘recyling’ – it’s ‘downcycling’ as what you end up with is inferior compared to what you started with. It postpones it going into landfill, but it doesn’t stop it.

To me as a biker & designer I’m really interested in how much use people get out of parts before they chuck them: my gut feeling is the speed of that is increasing. More companies using it, more products, with a faster turnaround of new designs coming to market.

You could argue that airplanes are a more wasteful use of carbon fibre…you could argue that mountain bike are a more frivolous use of carbon fibre. You can bet though that airlines will get 20-30+ years out of their planes, could the same be said for our current bikes & bits?

Until it’s easier to repair, maybe we should only buy CF parts for well proven, long lasting designs. If not you maybe should buy a part in something recyclable like alu or steel.