RefurbishBike

Refurbishbike

Refurbishbike is a company that collects lost and abandoned bikes from all over the city of Aarhus.

They refurbish the bikes and check that they are safe and legal to ride, and then they rent them out.

A bike can be rented for 179 kr (24 EUR) for 1-30 days. So whether you just need a bike for a day, or a month it’s the same price. If the bike breaks or you need a different size or type, you just hand it back and get another one.

Before the existence of Refurbishbike, the municipality of Aarhus was responsible for tagging abandoned bikes, and then collecting and storing them. They could not sell them, and they didn’t have a good system for lending or donation. Most of the bikes collected would therefore become metal waste and scrapped.

Refurbishbike started April 2021 with a donation of 600 bikes from the municipality depot. But when they started to ask around they found 20.000 abandoned bikes in the care of the municipality in various states of decay.

For each bike that they put back into circulation, 250 kg of Co2 is saved which is the approximate emission for producing a bike, not to mention the financial costs and the extension of lifetime gains from existing bikes.

It takes an average of 3 hours to check a bike and make it ready for service, and Refurbishbike is employing a number of people to do this. Also people from marginalised and vulnerable groups can work there which raises the social impact of company.

Circular Strategy: Loop

Country: Denmark

Collecting abandoned bikes and refurbishing them

The main circular project in RefurbishBike is collecting abandoned bikes around the city, refurbishing them and then renting them out to tourists, companies, private citizens and events. The bikes are collected and checked and put in containers for renting or shipping to events around the country.

Renting out the bikes

Most of the larger cities in Denmark are queueing up to become partners with RefurbishBike as well.

The customers are:
- private citizens who think that renting a bike for 24 euros a month is an easy way to keep a bike in the city;
- tourists that just need a transport for a day or a week. (renting an electric scooter will cost you 24 euros in no time);
- companies that offer bikes to their employees;
- hotels that lend a bike to their guests
- event managers who can offer cheap mobility options to their participants and staff
- festivals who want to give guests a green mobility option.

Economic impact
Reintroducing working bikes to the mobility infrastructure. Saving 1000’s of bikes from being scrapped and saving users from potentially having to buy a bike.

A bike can be rented for 179 kr (24 EUR) for 1-30 days.
So whether you just need a bike for a day, or a month it’s the same price.

The Municipality of Aarhus is saving around 30 euros in handling per bike, and the bikes are now reintroduced to users as rent bikes.

Social impact

Creating new jobs to socially disadvantaged people in the tagging, collection and refurbishing phase.
Giving people easy access to temporary mobility options.
Promoting health by promoting biking in the city.
Offering a cheap way to get a bike without knowing how to repair it or pay for expensive repairs.
Offering a great variety of bikes to make sure that the users can always find one that suits them.

Environmental impact
Each bike that is reintroduced to the mobility infrastructure and thus removes the need to produce, ship and buy a new bike saves 250 kg of Co2 emissions per bike, not counting the cost of production and shipping.

Human resources
Staff/personnel who can handle the bikes.

Financial resources
Bike collection
The primary resources needed for this circular project are the bikes. Abandoned bikes are all over the city, but the job of finding them, tagging them and collecting them is a slow process. The next step is to refurbish them, and that requires around 3 hours per bike.

Other resources
Place for Storage
Then there is the storage. At the moment they are being kept in shipping containers, so they can be transported to where they are needed.