In the case of the co-op I volunteered at, we left the choosing and pickup of abandoned bikes to the university.  They already had a system in place to remove abandoned bikes from campus, but didn&#39;t have a &quot;good&quot; way of disposing of them.  The co-op came along and provided a win-win situation.  Same thing was essentially true for the local municipalities.  They would contact us when they had bikes available.<br>
<br>In this way... the university/municipality takes the risk of dealing with an irate student/citizen who thinks their bike was stolen.  It should be noted, however, that it was rare in my experience to have someone come in after the fact and claim a bike.  It was equally rare to actually get high quality bikes in this fashion.  Most of the bikes that are abandoned are low end bikes.  Sometimes you run across some good bikes, but the x-mart bike percentage is high.<br>
<br>Another thing to note... some of the bikes will be very poor quality and not even good for parts.  You&#39;ll want to have the ability to pick and choose which bikes you take in... leaving the rest for the university/municipality to dispose of.  Or if you can get a good rate on scrap metal... you might decide that it&#39;s worth volunteer time to strip the bikes and get the scrap metal money.<br>
<br>Oh yeah... the volume can, at times, be overwhelming.  Make sure you have enough warehouse space to take the bikes in as needed.  Or, if the university/municipality can do it... have them store the bikes for you until you can fit them into your warehouse space.<br>
<br>Anyway... that&#39;s all I can think of off the top of my head.  I&#39;m not involved with a co-op right now since my move... though I hear that my new local collective is really great (Salt Lake City).<br><br>--sam<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Erik Stockmeier <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:eriks@therecyclery.org">eriks@therecyclery.org</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Are there any groups out there with strong partnerships with local municipalities or campuses to collect abandoned bicycles?  I know the Recyclery (Chicago) and many other groups certainly pick up donations from police departments and the like, but we have a number of volunteers and a campus environmental group working on setting up a structured collection program and are looking for ways to proceed.  Do you, for example, have a specific notice or flyer you attach to bikes?  We are thinking of something that says &quot;hello, this bike looks abandoned.  if it is yours, you can fix it up at the recyclery.  Otherwise it will be removed...&quot;<br>


<br>Anyhow, just wondering if anyone has already done this.  Thanks for your help!<br><br>Erik<br>@ The Recyclery (Chicago)<br>
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