A commercial cleaning social enterprise that helps prison leavers in the UK has launched a green initiative to increase recycling of bicycle inner tubes and tires. NGB (No Going Back) Clean launched the initiative – called Ride, Recycle, Repeat – at the London headquarters of LinkedIn on March 12. NGB Clean, based in Kennington, southeast London, has joined forces with waste management firm Velorim, which will coordinate the recycling of the tires and inner tubes at its Staffordshire processing center as part of the UK’s National Bicycle Tire Recycling Scheme, which has over 600 collection sites across the UK. Velorim’s recycling process includes shredding the tires and recycling them into materials such as non-slip flooring, cycle paths and construction materials.
The scheme is the brainchild of NGB Clean COO Sam Worden, who is arranging the placement of recycling bins in bike stores across London where cyclists can place worn tires and tubes for collection. Implementation of inner tube and tire recycling in London office buildings will be followed up by road shows in other locations where the scheme is set to be rolled out. The company hopes to recruit prison leavers to carry out collections.
London bicycle shops and retailers have no direct methods for the disposal of scrap tires, inner tubes and other bicycle-specific waste through standard waste collection routes as these are considered complex waste. In the UK, over 10,000 tons of bicycle tires and inner tubes go to landfill every year.
