Nearly 20 million shared bikes were put on the streets in China in 2017, and they may lead to about 300,000 tons of waste metal, almost the total weight of steel used in five aircraft carriers.
Many discarded bikes are piling up in big cities like Shanghai. Some of them are not completely broken but are still taken out of use. It is said the life span(使用期限) of a shared bike should not be more than three years.
"One size doesn't fit all. If a shared bike still works well after three years, it might be a big waste to throw it away," says Zhu Xiao, a professor at Renmin University.
The huge number of shared bikes and their short life span raise the question of how to recycle the resulting waste metal, and some leading bike-sharing companies have already taken steps in bike recycling.
Mobike signed a contract(合同;契约) with a resouree recycling company in May, 2017, to make full use of its bikes, while its competitor OFO also started a program for the recycling of spare bikes, which is not limited to its yellow bikes but open to all types of shared bikes.
To solve the waste problem, local governments should make more rules on the management and recycling of shared bikes. Bike-sharing companies should also improve the quality of their bikes to reduce waste. The two sides need to work together to make cities more bike-friendly.
