**Melbourne only
If you own a bike, you would have ultimately worn out a tyre, popped a tube, broken a part beyond repair or got a new bike and no longer need your old one.
If you’re not sure what to do with them, there are some great initiatives out there that repurpose old bikes, parts and materials that would otherwise go to landfill.
Tyres and inner tubes
Recycle Bike Tyres
Recycle Bike Tyres partners with over 40 bike shops and councils across Melbourne. All tyres and tubes they receive are repurposed for:
tyre driven fuel
road construction
athletic and playground surfaces
tile adhesives
modular products such as park benches and safety rams.
Visit the Recycle Bike Tyres website to find out where you can donate old tyres and tubes.
Working bikes and parts
Community Bike Hub
The Community Bike Hub repairs donated bikes and give them to people in need.
You can drop by at any of their locations during business hours to donate any unwanted parts, accessories and bikes - both adults and kids.
And if you’ve got some old tools you no longer need, you can also drop these off at any of their locations. They’ll be put to good use in their volunteering sessions.
Find your closest Community Bike Hub location on their website.
Second Chance Cycles
Second Chance Cycles is a community workshop that recycles bikes and trains people to repair bikes. You can also volunteer with Second Chances Cycles on Thursday and Friday.
WeCycle
WeCycle provides low-cost bikes to marginalised people in the community from their volunteer program. You can donate bikes or your time to fix up old bikes.
But before you drop any bikes off at WeCycle, email them some photos of your bike. Some lower quality bikes have poor parts and frames which makes it hard to repurpose them.
Visit their website to find what bikes you can donate.
The smallest of things, like donating your time to fix up old bikes or old bikes or parts to be repurposed can all go towards driving a circular economy.
