A groundbreaking school’s project to recycle your bicycles is going public thanks to Rhondda Cynon Taf Council.
For more than a year, pupils at Pontypridd High School’s Eco Committee have been working closely with the Council’s Services For Young People and Streetcare Team on a scheme to make theirs the “greenest” school of all.
One of their pioneering initiatives to help them achieve their aim, is creating a recycling centre for old bicycles and spare parts called “Recycle Cycle”.
The entire operation has been such a success that a group of pupils have their own garage space in the school where the old bikes are stored for them to overhaul.
Now they’re ready to go public with the scheme by taking part in Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s three-day Love Where You Live festival later this month at Ynysangharad War Memorial Park, Pontypridd.
The project team will be at the Park giving out bikes to the community for free. Volunteer Robert Edwards has been helping the young people gain skills with the bike maintenance and teaching them how to rebuild the cycles to a professional standard.
Charlotte Morris, the Council’s the detached youth worker for Pontypridd is also running qualifications with the programme so the young people not only gain skills but also qualifications and experience in the area.
The entire project is also run in conjunction with the Council’s Building The Future Together programme, a three-year project costing £14million which is part financed by the Convergence European Social Fund through the Welsh Assembly Government and aims to improve the life chances and career opportunities of many thousands of young people in Rhondda Cynon Taf.
Abandoned and dumped bikes or spare parts are retrieved from all of the Council’s Community Recycling Sites throughout the county borough and taken to the school.
Then pupils spend their spare time rebuilding the bikes before donating them to various causes such as charity shops or selling them on to build up a fund which will go towards buying more mechanical parts.
Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Cabinet Member for Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, Cllr Eudine Hanagan explained: “As a local authority we are at the very forefront of the recycling and waste agenda in Wales and are continually looking at new and innovative ways of taking this forward..
“Through the collective efforts of our Services For Young People and the Building the Future Together programme, the recycling cycles project has been another outstanding success. On the one hand is fulfills our pledge to reduce waste sent to landfill and on the other it helps develop the skills of young people to ensure better career opportunities in the future.”
