Manchester City Council Worker Recycles 3,000th Bike

[John the Monkey]

Nice story in the Evening News last night, about a council worker who saves bikes destined for local landfill.

A Manchester City Council worker who restores scrapped bikes and gives them to the local community free of charge has reached a new landmark.
Depot controller Oscar Brogden handed over his 3,000th bike this week - to a 10-year-old Gorton youngster.
Oscar, based at the City Council's Hammerstone Road site in Gorton, takes damaged bikes that have been brought into the depot after their original owners have thrown them away.
With the help of a colleague, he uses his own time to fix the cycles before giving them to members of the community.

Full story (from the council's website) here.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Hero.
He should get a gong.

 

[User482]

What a great guy.

 

[Landslide]

I get a warm tingly feeling of happiness just reading about it!

 

[hubgearfreak]

excellent, i hope that halfords/argos aren't going to assassinate him,?
that's a lot of £99's they've lost

but this bit interests me..

Not only do the bikes go to a good cause, but Oscar stops them from ending up in landfill sites.

are MCC so stupid as to send bicycles to landfill, when they're made of metal and could be recycled?
if our local government were mustard, they'd be the sort americans have on hotdogs, but even they can work this one out

 

[fossyant]

are MCC so stupid as to send bicycles to landfill, when they're made of metal and could be recycled?

Nope they re-cycle the metal - just an 'editorial' comment....

Good on the chap !

 

[alecstilleyedye]

he's a legend. let's hope that the kids that get the bikes don't use them for nefarious purposes…

 

[User482]

excellent, i hope that halfords/argos aren't going to assassinate him,?
that's a lot of £99's they've lost

but this bit interests me..

Not only do the bikes go to a good cause, but Oscar stops them from ending up in landfill sites.

are MCC so stupid as to send bicycles to landfill, when they're made of metal and could be recycled?
if our local government were mustard, they'd be the sort americans have on hotdogs, but even they can work this one out

MCC aren't going to pay staff to strip down whole bikes so that the frame can be recycled.

 

[twowheelsgood]

Composite metal items are usually pulverised and seperated magnetically.

Plastic simply burns away and aluminium melts much lower temps than ferrous metals.

Usually a bike wouldn't be touched at all.

 

[User482]

Composite metal items are usually pulverised and seperated magnetically.

Plastic simply burns away and aluminium melts much lower temps than ferrous metals.

Usually a bike wouldn't be touched at all.

Yes - I suspect that they will have a metals skip that will be sent to a contractor for processing; MCC won't have much to do with where the bikes end up.