Put your old bicycles to good use this month!

Why not recycle your cycle this month and do some good at the same time?

Letterkenny Rotary Club has launched their Bikes 4 Africa campaign where members of the public are being asked to donate their old bikes by leaving them at any of the six Bryson Recycling Centres up until Saturday, October 22nd.

These bikes will be repaired and refurbished and sent to Africa where they will be allocated to secondary school children to help them get to school each day.

This initiative is being supported by Donegal County Council and is part of National Reuse month campaign which is about encouraging people to rethink what we do with our waste and to pass it on, repair it or refurbish it into something new. 

Suzanne Bogan, Waste Awareness Officer with the Council, said, "This is a great initiative and one that clearly demonstrates what we are trying to achieve during National Reuse month. Donating, refurbishing and repairing items are all forms of reuse and offer people a chance to save or make money, get creative, learn a new skill and be environmentally conscious”.

Bikes can be left at any of the six Bryson Recycling Centres  - in Letterkenny, Dungloe, Milford, Carndonagh, Stranorlar and Laghey.

Once the bikes are collected, they are sent to Loughlan House, the correctional facility in Co. Cavan where the Irish Prison Service has arranged for the inmates to refurbish the bicycles as part of their rehabilitation and training programme.

The latest shipment in May of this year brought the number of refurbished bicycles to 1,000, all of which will eventually be transported to  Gambia, where Rotary’s partner organisation “Jole Rider Gambia” pre-selects the schools, and then oversees the distribution of the bikes, with the assistance of the Gambian Education Ministry.  

Bikes remain the property of the school, with teachers allocating them to the children according to set criteria.  When a child graduates from school, their bike is then reallocated to another child.   his means that each bike impacts positively on as many as 10 students.

Letterkenny Rotary Club was successful in sending 50 + bicycles last year, and want to do the same or even more this year. It costs €10 per bike to have them transported. 

Shane Clerkin, Manager with Bryson Recycling said they were "delighted to support the Rotary Club’s Bikes for Africa campaign by providing collection points at the six Recycling Centres in Co Donegal.  At Bryson we are committed to building better futures and where better to achieve this than gathering bicycles for school children in Africa?"    

For Recycling Centre opening times and more on Reuse month, visit www.donegalcoco.ie