If you’re not recycling while you’re cycling, are you really cycling at all? There’s a ‘Yo, dawg’ meme in there somewhere but we’re not about to go looking for it. But seriously, though, how do cyclists get even more eco-friendly? By recycling their bike frames, of course.
Igus, an international plastics specialist with a local division, has come up with a recycled plastic bike frame that should put a few good karma points on your side of the ledger, provided you also remember to recycle it when you’re done.
Bike frame-job
As high-end cycling gear goes, the injection-moulded plastic frame isn’t going to spend time under someone wearing a yellow jersey in France. The single-piece frame doesn’t have to muck around with seams or welds but it also weighs in at 3.3kg. If that seems lightweight, you obviously don’t compete in the two-wheeled vehicle space. You’d have to trim a couple of kilos off to match the weight reduction carbon fibre frames provide.
This is fine, since this Igus-made plastic bike frame isn’t intended to spend time on the Tour de France circuit. Igus and Advanced Bikes, a Germany-based e-bike manufacturer, have teamed up for this one, meaning it’ll have an electric motor attached. You’re unlikely to notice the ‘excess’ weight when lithium-ion does all the heavy lifting for you.
The injection moulding method developed by Igus for this bike — the plastics company will make Advanced Bikes’ components for the German outfit — will later be expanded to produce other e-bike components. The eventual aim is to create a wholly recyclable e-bike, as far as possible. It should be doable. Even the batteries should make it through the recycling process and back into a whole new product somewhere down the line.
