Adam Last year, something interesting happened in the world bike mechanics: it became illegal to send cycle tyres & inner tubes to landfill.
The technicalities are quite muddy. It seems to come under the Environment Bill 2020, but that hasn’t been passed into law yet. However, the bottom line is this: inner tubes & tyres shouldn’t really be going into your black wheelie bin.
That makes a paradox. Inner tubes can’t go into blue recycling bins, and aren’t accepted at Household Recycling Centres. They are illegal to send to landfill, and impossible to recycle. A 2018 survey by the Association of Cycle Traders found it to amount to 44,000 tonnes every year.
Meanwhile, car tyres have been recycled for many years, and recycling has been mandatory since 2003. They are made of the same rubber, so it is strange that there is no universal recycling for inner tubes. Adam.bike is now collecting inner tubes for recycling. We are now a member of Cycle of Good, which guarantees inner tubes are recycled into new inner tubes & tyres.
Inner tubes are accepted from anyone – clients & non-clients. Just get in touch to organise drop-off.
For now, only inner tubes are accepted, not tyres.