Typically recycling centers have two disincentives for allowing bike-picking at a dropoff site: injury liability and loss of revenue (steel and aluminum do generate revenue).
The revenue part is going to be fairly petty to officials, but sometimes staff and middle management in a recycling program can be bristly about it. They tend to regard the bikes as income, and owned by them as soon as someone drops them off. In our experience they could be actually pretty nasty if someone asked to take a bike or bikes. It's probably best to start the conversation as high up the chain as possible.
Another component is reliability. It's going to be a lucky break if a dropoff point or recycling center is willing to let bikes sit in a pile at their worksite somewhere, waiting for your local co-op to find a volunteer to come by and get them. They're most likely going to want guaranteed responsibility for a removal schedule, so you should have that plan available when negotiating with officials or administrators.
As for liability, that's a toss up involving a lot of variables. It's sort of up to their legal team to decide whether they might have responsibility for injury from use of any bikes that liminally pass through their possession, or responsibility for injuries that might happen to you while collecting on their worksite(s). If, for instance, they leave the bikes in a pile outside of a work area, that's probably less worrisome for them.
Lastly, they'll also likely want to minimize adding processing work to their teams, who already spend all day managing the logistics of shuffling materials around. Maybe the teams wouldn't mind in your area, or maybe they'd chafe at the suggestion of complicating their workflow.
So be flexible, study what's involved in their process already, and demonstrate that you've thought a lot about this and have a plan for being reliable. And, of course, that you have your own liability insurance that covers this kind of activity.
~cyclista Nicholas
On 2024-04-04 21:29, Stephen Andruski via TheThinkTank wrote:
The Rockville Bike Hub is allowed to pick up bikes from our local recycling center. Before the pandemic we were going fairly regularly, though there was decreasing value. Since the pandemic, there have been very few bikes worth getting.
Once people have found out we accept bikes, many more have come straight to us.
Steve Andruski
On Thu, Apr 4, 2024, 5:12 PM Bike Regina via TheThinkTank < thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote:
The person you want to ask is Stan Yu at BCBC in Saskatoon. They have an amazing waste diversion program.
operations@bridgecitybicyclecoop.com
Angèle Bike Regina board member
-----Original Message----- From: alex.hindle--- via TheThinkTank thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2024 2:41 PM To: thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org Cc: alex.hindle@bikeedmonton.ca Subject: [TheThinkTank] collecting bikes from municipal eco-stations/waste dropoff sites
Hello! We're talking with managers at our city eco stations (household waste dropoff sites) about their collecting bikes that we (Bike Edmonton) can then pickup to reuse. They already get a lot of bikes dropped off in their scrap metal bins, but these are all scrapped at the moment. I wondered if any other groups have arrangements with waste drop-off sites/reuse centres to do this? If so, can you share the arrangement you have and process you use. Do you select useful bikes from a big pile, do workers there filter out what they think are good bikes, or do you have to take them all? This seems to be one of the bigger challenges we need to figure out.
Thanks very much! _______________________________________________ TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit
https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol lectives.org/message/RO5NNNZUC5JJUNE463JO63JCIUWOQX7W/
TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...