Recycling and repairing old bikes to keep them out of landfill

Brainwave Bikes in Melbourne is addressing social disadvantage while recycling used bicycles.

The program receives around 50 to 80 bikes a week. Via paid and volunteer positions, it repairs and refurbishes the bicycles to sell them through its shop. To do this it relies heavily on social media and word of mouth.

The team sources bikes through hard waste collections and transfer stations. It also receives bikes collected through its partners, Mercedes-Benz dealers and 99 Bikes stores. But Brainwave Bikes hasn’t stopped there.

Brainwave Bike Manager Kieran McMahon says, 'We conducted a survey to find out what each council does with bicycle waste. We found that most LGAs [local government areas] now have used bicycles in their recycling guide and accept them both as hard waste and at the transfer centres.'

Not only did the survey inform the program, it was useful for educating councils. The engagement raised councils’ awareness to create a dedicated bike place at their local transfer centres and ensure bicycles are included in their recycling guides. Kieran says, 'We need to make it easier for bikes to be treated as a separate stream of waste, and ideally not damaged, so they can be repaired or used for parts.'

The program works with Cleanaway, the company that runs many council hard waste collection services. Cleanaway now takes care to separate bikes when collecting and take them to their Dandenong storage facility. The program also organises ‘bike musters’ to collect bikes with corporates and schools. This also encourages corporate volunteers.

The program is considering how systems can support individual behaviour change in order to build the circular economy for bicycles. Kieran says, 'It needs to be easier for people to donate and buy bikes, so we’re looking at a deposit place for bikes. They could be through councils, but we’re also thinking about neighbourhood houses as potential drop off points.'

'Our super store is also a tool we use to help change attitudes to buying recycled bikes. People are surprised when they see the quality and affordability of the bicycles on sale and some have even thought that they are brand new bikes.'

The program is also creative about finding customers. Kieran says, 'We have a pop-up shop at universities and we’ve just started the Queen Victoria Market’s Purpose Precinct with other social enterprises. We want to target the environmentally and socially conscious customer in the inner suburbs. While we might not be able to afford a shop in those places, we can pack our van and trailer with 25 bikes and set up a temporary space.'

Brainwave Bikes recently celebrated its two-year anniversary and recycled its 5,000^th bicycle. It’s proof that there’s a future where buying refurbished bicycles is commonplace in a circular economy that minimises waste and saves emissions.

Driving circular economy at a local scale

Sustainability Victoria provides local communities across the state with the tools and knowledge they need to participate in the shift to a circular and more sustainable way of living.

Over the past decade, Sustainability Victoria has supported 137 community groups to deliver sustainability impacts in their local communities including tool libraries, repair cafes, composting hubs and food sharing initiatives. This project was funded through one such initiative, the Circular Economy Communties Fund.

Read our community circular economy initiative guides.