Five Ways To Reuse And Recycle Your Old Bicycle

Five Ways To Reuse And Recycle Your Old Bicycle

Do you have an old bike around the house whose riding days are long gone? Once having proudly flown along neighborhood streets, zooming down woodland or jumping curbs, now it lays in ruin, taking up space and catching dust in your garage. Before you decide to junk it, why not consider a few ways to reuse and recycle it? Just imagine: A way to keep that old family friend right at home or us it to bring in more money than you thought was possible.

It might surprise you how many fun and creative ways there are to reuse your bicycle around your home. Bicycles consist of several useful and dynamic parts that lend themselves well to crafting and home projects. Don’t let the valuable materials and mechanisms which make up your old bike go to waste!

1. Outdoor Sculpture

Let your inner artist go wild and create a garden sculpture. Take the wheels and gears off your bike and shine them up or sand them down and repaint the metal. Connect them together, using wire and ties, in whatever way appeals to you, then anchor them in the ground around your flower beds. Not only is this a fun and unique way to spruce up your yard, these sculptures can be used as supports for plants and vines and act as barriers to birds and critters who might want to plunder your garden.

Outdoor Sculpture to Reuse and Recycle Your Old Bicycle

2. Planting

Turn the basket hanging off the front of your bike into a planter. Leave the handlebars intact and use them to fix the piece onto your wall. Line the basket and fill with soil and seeds—in just a short amount of time, this artistic planter will sprout and be too charming for words.

Bicycle Plantation

3. Organization

Remove the rubber tire from the bicycle wheels and scrub any residual grime or grease off the wheels. You can use a polisher or spray paint to shine or color the wheel as you’d like. Link three short lengths of chain, spaced evenly, around the circumference of the wheel. Then, connect these chains to a longer one, which you will use to suspend the wheel horizontally from your kitchen ceiling. Instant, inexpensive, hanging pot racks!

Kitchen Pot Hanger

4. Donate It

There are several charitable organizations with branches across the country which take used bikes, repair them or salvage their workable parts, and redistribute them to kids without bicycles. Many times, these bikes provide a way for young children to get to and from school in a way that is safer and faster than walking.

5. Recycle your Bicycle

If re-purposing your bike isn’t up your alley, maybe recycling it for its scrap metal value is. Depending on your bike’s age and style, it probably contains a combination of recyclable metals including steel, aluminum, titanium, magnesium, chromium, and nickel. Since metals are hot commodities these days, your old bike may just bring you more cash than you thought it was worth. Derek Stilton, an AZ scrap metal price consultant, recommends checking online to find out what the materials in your bike may be worth before choosing your scrapper.

We may live in an occasionally wasteful society, but your old bike doesn’t have to be part of that trend. Whether you decide to reuse it in some creative way, or recycle it for its scrap metal value, you can rest assured that it will be put to good use and not end up in a landfill.