Re-Cycle recycles cycles for the Third World (From Harwich and Manningtree Standard)

Re-Cycle recycles cycles for the Third World

1:40pm Thursday 21st May 2009

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COLCHESTER’S emerging status as a cycling town means a charity which provides lifelines across the developing world has been able to reach an important milestone.

Re-Cycle, ships second-hand bicycles from Colchester to the Third World – and has sent its 30,000th “trusty steed” overseas.

“By giving someone a bicycle you will improve their access to healthcare, education and employment. It can be the first step to a better life for them.”

Re-Cycle manager Derek Balcombe

Unloved and unwanted bicycles here can change lives in places such as Congo, Lesotho, Kenya and the Gambia, points out Re-Cycle manager Derek Balcombe.

He says: “It’s really taken off in the past couple of years. The more bikes we can send out, the better.

“Cycling may be enjoying something of a resurgence, particularly in Colchester, with its cycle town status, but there are so many bikes out there which are too small or just not used. I can’t ever see there being a shortage of donations.

“You cannot measure the difference a bike can make to a person’s life in Africa.

“Out in rural areas of Africa, there isn’t any public transport, so people have no choice but to walk everywhere.

“By giving someone a bicycle you will improve their access to healthcare, education and employment. It can be the first step to a better life for them.”

When bikes are handed out over there, priority is given to key workers, such as nurses and teachers.

For example, an African health crusader known locally as Condom Man took it upon himself to go out distributing free condoms and HIV and Aids literature in the communities surrounding the Namibian town of Mariental.

He was walking as much as 15 miles a day, before the charity supplied a bicycle to reduce his burden and allowed him to cover more ground.

Re-Cycle has even developed ambulances which can be pulled by a bike, for use in rural areas of Namibia.

The wheeled stretchers can be used to tow a sick person or pregnant woman to a hospital or clinic when no other transport is available.

Other African countries where bike ambulances are in use have noted marked declines in infant and maternal mortality rates.

“If you give a health worker a bike, they can travel three times as far and three times as fast, so they can see three times as many patients,” Mr Balcombe explains.

Back in Colchester, the bicycles find their way to Re-Cycle’s base on the Moorside Industrial Estate from a wide range of sources.

Mr Balcombe predicted it would take just five years for the charity to send out a further 30,000 bikes.

“We get every size and type of bike donated,” he said.

“It ranges from someone who clears out their shed and gives us an old bike, to schools, churches or Scout groups having a collection and sending several dozen.“ Braintree and Colchester councils and Essex University all pass on bikes abandoned in their areas to the charity. It also has an arrangement with Royal Mail to take all its old posties’ bikes once they have served seven years delivering mail.

Mr Balcombe says: “It took several years to get Royal Mail to agree to that.

“Its bikes used to be cut up for scrap, because it was worried about people either pretending to be a postman or having an accident and suing it.

“Now we are able to give them a second life in Africa.”

Every bike is refurbished, then packed in a shipping container. A single container was sent during the charity’s first year, a decade ago. It now sends as many as a dozen containers a year.

Volunteers and offenders sent by Essex Probation Service and the Military Corrective Training Centre, in Berechurch Hall Road, Colchester, help check and load the bikes, along with spare parts and tools.

Mr Balcombe says: “Anyone who gets one of our bikes can get it repaired by our partners in Africa. We also run training courses so people can set up their own repair businesses out there.

“You hear stories of people who go to Africa and see almost new tractors abandoned, because something has broken and they don’t know how to fix it, but a bike is very simple to maintain.”

This week, the volunteers began loading Re-Cycle’s first container of bikes to Zambia.

“Before we started this consignment, we had sent 29,738 bicycles to Africa,” Mr Balcombe says.

“We get 400 in a container, so we’ve chosen a bike to be the symbolic 30,000th one.

“It belonged to an elderly lady who can’t ride any more after breaking her hip.

“It’s in a very good condition and we’ve put a special sticker on it, and will be getting our contact in Zambia to take a picture for posterity when it is handed out.”

l For more information, go to www.re-cycle.org

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