Cycle of good karma

Pradeep, along with four friends and the RideACycle Foundation, is the master mind behind CycleReCycle, a project that aims at refurbishing and repairing used, discarded bicycles and handing them over to underserved children who use it to go to school.

Says Pradeep, whose CycleReCycle has partnered with RR Cycles to recondition and put the donated bicycles back into the system, “If you have an unused, broken down bicycle, just drop it off at any of the RR Cycles branches at Ulsoor, Madiwala and Yeshwantpur.” Your kind act will ensure that a kid gets to use the repaired bicycle to go to school. You will also ensure the kid stays in good health as cycling is great exercise. And, of course, it is non-polluting, so you’d have done your bit for the environment.

The idea for CycleReCycle came about when Pradeep, an avid cyclist himself, came across Seattle’s Recycled Cycles and the inspiring Mumbai Bicycle Project. Murali HR, Mayank Rungta, Lavanya K and Rakesh Jain of RR Cycles are now assisting him with his dream of sending kids to school on bicycles. Between them, they manage the logistics of identifying donors, picking up the bicycles, raising the funding to repair the bicycles from RideACycle Foundation with RR Cycles chipping in, getting NGOs like Dream School Foundation and the India Literacy Project to identify meritorious and needy students and, finally, sending the bikes to them. The challenge before Pradeep’s team is to scale from 6 bicycles that have been donated over the last few weeks to perhaps 20,000 or even 30,000.

The good news? It isn’t very difficult to get discarded bicycles. The Bangalore police have thousands of unclaimed bicycles in their backyards and are willing to give them to CycleReCycle. And it doesn’t take much to put a discarded bicycle back into the system. In most instances, less than Rs 600 per bicycle will do the trick. But it still requires a considerable amount of logistical management to make things happen. So Pradeep is now working on turning CycleReCycle into a self-sustainable model through a website.
Says Pradeep, “We plan to have an online portal wherein one can participate in the project as a donor of bicycles, give money, work as an identifier of bicycle beneficiaries or as a transporter of bicycles and spares, and help complete the CycleReCycle lifecycle.” There are other innovative methods in the pipeline. For example, Pradeep says that he plans to organise CycleReCycle melas where people can come in with their old bicycles and donate them and buy new cycles.
It’s a fascinating idea — one that can result in genuine reduction of waste by recycling precious bicycles.