Over the past couple of years, China has had a major boom in the bike-sharing industry. By renting bicycles out to the public for a fee, companies earn money from cyclists who use the same docking system.
Now this is all well and good if there are a handful of competitors in the market, but as of late China’s bike-sharing industry has expanded to a point where there are too many bikes and not enough people willing to ride them. The result is millions of unused and unwanted bicycles littering public areas, never to be used again.
Hoping to make use of these poorly discarded bikes, industrial designer Qiang Huang created ‘Bike Scavengers’ – a project centered around taking old shared bicycles and turning them into useful things like furniture. Working in collaboration with Chinese bike sharing company Mobike, Huang was able to get access to a wide variety of bicycle parts for the project.
Bike Scavengers has already made a stool and bench from old bike seats, a rolling cart tray from bike baskets, and a lamps from old mudguards. Huang says that the aim of the project isn’t just to recycle old bicycle parts, but to make a statement regarding the environmental impact unregulated bike-sharing schemes are in China. Ironically enough, it’s companies like Mobike he wants to reach with his recycled items; letting them know just how their overproduction has impacted the world.
The products created from Bike Scavengers are all for sale, with the money aiding the recycling efforts of the project. With recycled bike designs like this, people at the very least are going to take notice of all the parts used to make them.
