i know community cycles is not the only shop on this list that has space issues, nor shortness of volunteer hours....
i'm wondering if any shops out there have some kind of "we're all filled up, we can't take any more bikes" policy.
we've got connections with our local police department, so when they sweep through the public bike racks and clean up abandoned bikes, we get them. this brings us several loads of 100-300 bikes per year. we've also got a similar hookup with the university of colorado at boulder, which is 30,000 students strong. this yeilds about the same number of bikes, but in fewer loads.
these are in addition to all our other donated bikes from individuals, smaller groups, etc.
we're already using cheaper, department store bikes, or those who are beyond repair specifically as stripper bikes, for parts, or for lessons.
we don't have a problem getting bikes to use/turnaround, as i'm guessing most of you also don't have this problem.
my question is, when do we say "sorry, we're all filled up, we can't take your bike right now"?
do any of you have some creative ways that you've solved the "we've got too many bikes and not enough space to keep them while they're waiting for a home"?
we have done some work with a couple of different groups that have sent bikes abroad, but we don't want to make this a regular part of our program, for various reasons. to date, we don't have a set policy, but we tend to only participate in those kinds of programs when we're busting at the seams, and getting rid of 300-500 bikes would help tremendously.
we've gotten in touch with our local recycling yard, who pretty much takes everything that can be recycled. i personally know that they see several bikes per week in their dumpsters, but they don't have any way to pull those out once they're in, once people dump washing machines, fridges, etc, on top of them. i'd like to see a seperate "bike dumpster" for people to drop them off, and we go and reuse them.
the problem is we're gonna need some better way to sort them and keep them until someone can get to them...
thanks for reading this far.
josh.