I struggled with this same issue. We get donations that sometimes are not
even recognizable as bikes, and they are occasionally left at the door while
we aren't around.

I have started to ask people to hang on to donations until we create some
space. However, I never turn down a bike that is delivered to us. If there
are items that we do not want, they should be clearly identified in the
request for bike donations. Once they make the trip, I feel an obligation
to take it and thank them for their effort.

Here are a couple things that we are either doing or trying to set up to
better manage junk bike donations:

-We promote Bike Round-Ups. They are one-day events where we take in a lot
of donations, sort and strip them, and get scrap removed before anything
goes in the building. It is volunteer-intensive, but prevents growth in the
pile of bikes we never seem to get to.

-We sell junk bikes to the scrap metal dealer. Sounds like policies vary
across the country, but we have been able to dump unlimited un-stripped
bikes, and sometimes get a nice check back for our efforts.

-We coordinate with Goodwill. They are willing to accept bike donations on
our behalf. It allows us to offer more supervised donation drop-off hours
without having to staff our facility. The only thing we need to do is get
them down the street to our shop.

-We offer bikes as materials for local artists. We haven't done a lot with
this yet, but we have been trying to encourage bike-related art by offering
bike parts and use of tools to local artists. We did get a cool bike rack
built this way.

-We give the scrap away. A couple people already suggested giving it to
scrappers. If just setting the pile out back doesn't work, a posting to the
"free" section of Craigslist should do the trick.

Hope that helps!

Scott TenBrink
Executive Director
Fitness Council of Jackson
225 North Jackson St.
Jackson, MI 49201
(517) 990-9798
scott@fitnesscouncil.org
www.fitnesscouncil.org

-----Original Message-----
From: thethinktank-bounces@bikecollectives.org
[mailto:thethinktank-bounces@bikecollectives.org] On Behalf Of Mark Rehder
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 10:45 PM
To: The Think Tank
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] rejecting trash bikes

Over 12 years I don't think we've turned any away at our door, but it
can certainly be an issue. For instance, our partner org. once went
with a truck to pick up about 60 bikes and came back with 20, having
told the donors to take the other 40 directly to scrap.

The two metal recyclers here want seats and tires off at the very
least, so we have to do that. We also remove the pedals if we can,
as they snag everything when trying to pull the scrap pile apart and
drag stuff up to the truck (our scrap pile, which volume-wise is
about the size of a panel truck, is in our basement,)

I too would like to hear how other orgs. handle this. We find that
newbie volunteers seem to love taking bikes apart, so we're able to
cope with it.

Now, crappy little kids bikes, that's another issue... Currently
we're leaving some in our back alley, hoping they'll disappear (and
they often do) before we bring them inside. Fortunately our landlord
does not seem to mind this.

Mark Rehder - General Manager
re-Cycles Bicycle Co-op
http://re-cycles.ca

On 12-Aug-09, at 8:15 PM, Urban Bike Project Wilmington, DE wrote:

> hey folks,
>
> a moral or social dilemma: when your shop accepts donations of used
> bikes, but you're already filled to the gills with hundreds of
> bikes that may or may not ever get fixed up, how do you begin to
> turn away donations that are really not worth the space? or do
> you? just looking for some suggestions of how other shops have
> dealt with this issue. it gets to the point where we don't have
> the time, space, or man-power to strip down all those
> pieces-of-crap even to send to the scrap yard, but now that people
> know that we accept used bikes, it's hard to know how to say no.
>
> thanks!
>
> sarah
>
>
> Urban Bike Project of Wilmington
> -a 501(c)3 non-profit bike shop-
> 1908 N. Market Street (entrance is in the parking lot behind the
> building)
> Wilmington, DE 19802
>
> Hours:
> Thursday 6:30-9:00
> Saturday 1:00-4:00
>
> Visit us online at http://urbanbikeproject.org
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