Blog Action Day: Recycling Scrap Steel

One of the things that's really important to us at Bikes For Tykes is to reuse and recycle materials that we come in contact with. Since we run on pretty much no money, it's just good business sense for us to find "second use" for things that are bike related. Sometimes that thing is the bike itself.

Let's face facts. Many of the bicycles in this country are built, purchased with good intentions, then hung in the garage for uncounted years. Some are used to death, and the owner doesn't have the skills to fix it. Others have weathered too much weather, displaying a coating of rust that can sometimes be impossible to remove. In the past, these soldiers of steel were "taken to the dump." Well, we just can't do that anymore.

As we become more aware of benefits provided by recycling, it's clear that throwing a bike away is just not the thing to do. Bikes For Tykes takes in donated bicycles, but doesn't rebuild every one. Some end up being parts bikes for others. And some bikes simply don't have anything of value and must be purged from the inventory. I don't see this as a strain, because I see it as an opportunity to clean up. We use recycling scrap steel as a solution for folks who don't know what to do with their old bikes. Plus it's an easy FREE way to keep our streets and back alleys clean of potentially hazardous broken bikes. In fact, according to a blog entry by Vicki Bell at The Fabricator, steel is one of the most recycled materials in the world - beating all others combined. This means less ore needs to be taken out of the earth. It also means that the rusty Huffy hanging in the rafters will one day be the fender to a Hyundai.

It's good to reuse stuff. It's something that is very important in our Bikes For Tykes program. Without it, if we were to use all brand new parts to build bikes for underprivileged kids, our costs would skyrocket and we would not have the ability to touch all the corners in our community. Recycling is a good idea. We do it every day.

So how does a person recycle scrap steel for free? It's not hard, if the industries are close by. In Western Washington, we're fortunate to have Arrow Metals in Woodinville that takes complete bikes (no disassembly required) and throws them on an enormous pile. Snohomish County also has scrap steel collection bins in at least two locations. The City of Seattle has a scrap steel bin at its Fremont facility. The more sources we find to recycle this material, the less we will need to use new material in the future. After all, it doesn't take virgin steel to make a Huffy...

So before throwing away that old metal fan or rusty trike, try to find a way to recycle it. It just makes good sense.