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Project Finds New Homes for Unwanted Bikes From US. Bikes for the World has shipped thousands of bicycles to developing countries.
Americans bought an
estimated eighteen and a half million bicycles last year. Some bikes never get
much riding. Mostly they gather dust. But a project based in Washington is
putting unwanted bikes from the United States to good use in developing
countries.
Keith Oberg who is the director of Bikes for the World says "Everybody has
an old bicycle, and it is usually not ridden. It sits there in the garage, or
basement or shed, going to waste."
Bikes for the World collects
bicycles and delivers them at low cost to community programs in developing
countries. It shipped more than five thousand bikes during the first eight
months of this year. Last year it shipped about ten thousand three hundred.
The bicycle recycling program is one of the largest in the United States. It is
a sponsored project of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.
Bikes for the World began in two thousand five. Since then it has shipped more
than forty thousand bikes to communities in Africa, Latin America and the
Caribbean, says director Keith Oberg:
"We work currently with partners in seven countries actively -- in Uganda, Ghana. We're talking to an organization that we would like to ship to in Liberia. We have shipped to Namibia and the Gambia in the past. And in Central America we ship to Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and we are talking to two organizations in El Salvador," he added.
Bikes for the World partners with nonprofit groups in the United States
to collect unwanted bikes. Then it works with nonprofits in the other countries
to get the bikes to organizations and individuals that need them the most.
