I’ve been reading a bit about the circular economy at the moment where the idea is to prevent waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use. This is the opposite to the current linear economy of ‘take, make and dispose’.

I’ve been thinking about it in the construction industry as that’s my work, but it got me considering the bike industry. I’m a frequent changer of bikes and parts, some of which are second hand, but some are new and some parts at the end of my use get thrown away if I don’t think them reusable even for charity.

What it the cycling economy changed and moved to something more circular? What if the manufacturers took responsibility for what happened to what they produced at the end of its life? For example, what if tyre manufacturers took back their used tyres for a discount and had to recycle them into new tyres? Or even better, you never really bought a tyre, but instead effectively paid for them as a service where they went back to the manufacturer almost automatically and got replaced? A similar approach could work for so many other parts, chains, cassettes all wear and get disposed of regularly.

I have a feeling that there may be some smaller companies doing this type of thing already, but I don’t know of any of the big ones. I’d be interested to hear about it if anyone knows of any and also to see what people think about it.

Non-ferrous metal is quite valuable and will be recycled. Steel is also recycled. Rubber comes from trees, so it used to be atmospheric CO2. If you bury them in a landfill, you are doing the opposite of digging up fossil fuels and burning them.

Some problems will be that the cost of recycling is too high for certain things once they have worn out.

We are very good at making bits cheap (mostly due I suspect in the automation or low labour costs), so once you add in the cost of returning them, recycling them and reselling them, they become unecononic. We also only end up buying cheap bits as thats how they are promoted. Sad really.

I think there are two practical methods – metal recycling as hols describes, and re-use. Could some creaking cranks or sloppy shifting gears be a life changing upgrade on a “charity bike”?

Tyres I think are a bit of a no-go (someone will share the video of the guy making flip flops no doubt). They contain at most a few dollars worth of rubber. All of the cost is in the processing, moulds and so forth.

Unless there’s a practical useful method of chopping off the side knobs and shaving the centres from a worn minion, magic mary etc and making a soft compound XC tyre…
I think this will still be the preserve of the time rich tinkerer, not the eco conscious budget cyclist.

There is an EU directive in the works regarding throwing Bike tyres away. I think Schwalbe and Continental can extract the rubber and re-cycle them…..

EDIT: looks like it might just be UK law

UK to make scrapping of bicycle tyres illegal

Just binned a worn out HRII. I normally “downcycle” them by giving them away when there is a bit of life left in them but this one was properly gubbed.

Do Islabikes still do their rental scheme where you rent a bike from them and they restore, replace and repaint bikes to as new condition when your kids out grow them and you get the next size up?

This is what Isla is trying to achieve with the Imagine project, there’s a bit of info in this write up about the challenges fro a bike materials perspective. https://singletrackworld.com/2019/10/islabikes-a-bike-company-with-active-imaginations/

Electric bikes need this! At the moment they are WEE at the end of their lives. Shimano and Bosch just tell you to recycle as appropriate in council facilities. No joined up thinking anywhere. Shimano seem to design in obsolescence.

Shimano and Bosch just tell you to recycle as appropriate in council facilities.

No different to any other product then. They don’t want worn out motors back, cost more to strip and rebuild them and they’d never be as good as new ones, which are built by robots in a completely automated process.

Or even better, you never really bought a tyre, but instead effectively paid for them as a service

Well tyre companies would love this, as would most companies to be honest. Hence why you see the subscription model being pushed on everything from TV to cars.

Reduce. reuse, recycle. The first is the key. Just buy less and buy secondhand

Although laudable in aim, the idea that mountain biking should make a difference is fairly silly. The environmental cost of a rich, western, largely male hobby is already indefensible and to suggest that we should change the supply chain on environmental grounds is like including a dustpan and brush with every missile.

We changed wheel sizes, making a whole bunch of bikes obsolete because it makes the trail come alive, we changed to 1x because of some equally spurious reason, we changed geometry because something something.

The whole industry runs like the fashion trade; bring out that new thing and they will buy it, and dump the rest in a skip.

…and it’s all done so those rich, western types can show off a new bike in the car park, and let’s not even get into the transport of these things to a place they can be ridden.

Although laudable in aim, the idea that mountain biking should make a difference is fairly silly. The environmental cost of a rich, western, largely male hobby is already indefensible and to suggest that we should change the supply chain on environmental grounds is like including a dustpan and brush with every missile.

You’re putting words in mouths, the OP said CYCLING, not mountain biking. But yeah, since it costs so much to produce why should we even bother trying to clean it up, may as well just throw them in the sea.

We changed wheel sizes, making a whole bunch of bikes obsolete because it makes the trail come alive, we changed to 1x because of some equally spurious reason, we changed geometry because something something.

The whole industry runs like the fashion trade; bring out that new thing and they will buy it, and dump the rest in a skip.

Hmm, someone must have been pinching stuff out those skips as I seem to have ended up with a lot of it. But those folk with more money than sense make stuff cheaper for the rest, must be a few fat bikes ready for the chop after not being used for a year or so.

Equally I’m restoring an actual skip find for my sister in law to use, just need a few bits and it’ll be good to go.

…and it’s all done so those rich, western types can show off a new bike in the car park, and let’s not even get into the transport of these things to a place they can be ridden.

Again, speaking for myself the last time I drove my bike anywhere was August. Maybe if we had better public transport we wouldn’t have to drive either.

I agree with most of what you say, it just seems like even less than a drop in the ocean; it’s a game, a toy, a pastime that creates an amount of money and an amount of waste just for amusement, just for fun.

Look at Fresh Goods Friday, look at the prices of these toys for rich people; it’s not in any way a sensible activity to start being environmentally sensitive about because it’s so far from environmentally sensitive. There is an argument that doing something is better than doing nothing, but really, come on…

Rubber comes from trees, so it used to be atmospheric CO2. If you bury them in a landfill, you are doing the opposite of digging up fossil fuels and burning them.

The synthetic rubber in tyres is oil derived.

Thanks for the link to the tyre recycling article – the company involved in it suggest that 30,500,000 tyres and 152,500,000 inner tubes are disposed of at landfill in the UK each year!

Thanks Hannah for the link to your article, I think I remember hearing about that at the time. I’m interested to dig into that a bit more, that’s a very real example of taking responsibility for what happens to what you produce, I hope that they are managing to make it work for them. I like the way they link it into being able to get the next size up when your kid grows which really keeps the make, use, return cycle strong.

Cheers all for the thoughts.