A WELL-KNOWN triathlete has partnered with a campaign in York - designed to get hundreds of the region’s unused and unwanted bikes back onto the road.
Yorwaste’s 'Get reCycling' campaign, partnered with the Jonny Brownlee Foundation and The Recycle Project CIC to give local families the gift of cycling.
The campaign kicked off with Yorwaste asking the public to drop old bikes off at its 22 household waste recycling sites throughout York and North Yorkshire, resulting in over 600 adult and children’s bikes being donated for refurbishment by the experts at Recycling Project CIC and put back to good use.
As part of the campaign, to promote the joy of cycling and recycling, Yorwaste ran a competition for young people to create bikes made from recycled materials for the chance to win a selection of refurbished, as good as new, bicycles for their entire families, along with a selection of Brownlee Foundation goodies, including signed merchandise and cycling kit.
Six-year-old Lincoln Gillam from Bedale, and 14-year-old Cara Harrington, from Leyburn, both raided their household recycling bins to produce creations, complete with egg box seats, toilet roll tube handlebars and yogurt pot pedals, which were selected as the winning entries by Yorwaste’s social media followers, along with Jonny and the team at the Brownlee Foundation.
On supporting the campaign, Jonny Brownlee said: "We were super impressed with Cara and Lincoln’s creations and delighted to see their love of cycling rewarded with a set of real-life bikes for their whole families to enjoy.
“Yorwaste’s Get reCycling campaign is so important. The more people we can get into the saddle, the healthier, cleaner and better off our region will be. It’s fantastic to see how many bikes have been donated, repaired and given new life over the last couple of years thanks to this initiative.”
The campaign also saw the waste management firm team up with Recycle Project CIC to roll out several free bike maintenance workshops throughout the summer, where members of the public could learn how to keep their cycles in tip-top condition.
James Todd, marketing executive at Yorwaste, said: “First of all, we’d like to offer our huge congratulations to Cara and Lincoln and their families, whose creations stood out amongst the many strong entries we received. From drawings on recycled materials to models made from containers and tubes, it was fantastic to see young people get on board with the environmental aspect of our campaign.
“We’d also like to extend our gratitude to the generous people of North Yorkshire who donated bikes, The Recycle Project CIC, The Brownlee Foundation and Helping Heart for Ukraine in Northallerton for helping us to bring our campaign to life and get bikes into the hands of deserving individuals."
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