Decommissioned
Whatever Happened to China’s Giant Piles of Abandoned Bicycles?
- Millions of bikes ended up being scrapped for the materials
- But some recycled cycles found new uses in unlikely places
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Remember those colorful mountains of metal in China after its bike-sharing boom went bust in 2017? Ever wondered what happened to them? Here’s how you recycle bicycles.
The bike-sharing craze in China five years ago sucked in billions of dollars of investors’ cash and clients’ deposits that start-ups spent on millions of new bikes in an effort to grab market share. When the inevitable collapse came, most of the companies went bankrupt, leaving city authorities having to pay to clean up the mess.