Calgary is facilitating the refurbishing and recycling of more than 2,000 old bicycles that end up in city landfills every year with the help of local non-profit groups.
The initiative started in 2000, when the group Wheels for Kids approached the city and asked what happened to bikes brought to the landfill. At that time, they were being recycled.
“They had an idea to refurbish them, reuse them and provide them to families in the Calgary area,” Rick Anweiler, the city’s leader of landfill operations, said Friday.
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The city now works with three non-profit groups, which come and inspect bicycles. One of the charities is All Nations, which has brought bikes to Ghana since 2015 for children to use.
“In the town or the village they have to come to the school and most of the time they really need stuff like bikes,” Colins Okyei, who collects the bicycles for the charity, said Friday.
“The kids were so happy and I had to cry.”
Anweiler estimates the majority of the bikes that come to the landfill end up being reused, instead of entering the facility’s metal recycling process.
At the Shepard Landfill, the bikes are set off in an area separate from the general waste pile. Even if a bike is deemed to be damaged beyond repair, there may still be a seat or a pedal that can be taken and used to create another bike, Anweiler said.
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“A lot of these bikes come and don’t even have to be refurbished in some cases.”
Despite the success of the program, city officials would still rather residents take their old bicycles straight to an appropriate charity, as opposed to bringing them to the landfill.
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