ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A London-based commercial cleaning social enterprise that helps prison leavers rebuild their lives has launched a green initiative to drive recycling of bicycle inner tubes and tyres.

NGB (No Going Back) CLEAN is ready to roll out the scheme across the country after learning many of the discarded inner tubes and tyres dumped in office bike stores were being thrown out with general waste.

NGB CLEAN launched the ‘Ride, Recycle, Repeat' initiative at The Ray Farringdon, the London headquarters of global social networking site LinkedIn.

The company has joined forces with waste management firm Velorim, which will co-ordinate the recycling of the tyres and inner tubes at its Staffordshire processing centre as part of the National Bicycle Tyre Recycling Scheme, which comprises over 600 collection sites across the UK.

The scheme is the brainchild of NGB CLEAN's chief operating officer Sam Worden, who is arranging the placement of recycling bins in bike stores across London where cyclists can place worn tyres and tubes for collection.

She explained: "At one of our contracts, we received a complaint that a bicycle inner tube was left on the floor of a bike store. When actioning this complaint, instead of simply disposing of the inner tube in the waste, we stopped and questioned what happens to it."

Worden, who hopes to recruit a prison leaver to carry out collections, added: "We want to engage with the London cycling community and further afield to raise their awareness of the option to recycle these items.

"Given that most medium to large buildings across London have bike stores and a large number of cyclists, NGB CLEAN believes it can make a huge impact. We are not driving this project with an expectation to make a profit but instead create something that will raise awareness and reduce waste going to landfill, and by utilising our access to property management companies we can really make a difference."

In order to launch the project and create as much attention as possible NGB CLEAN has won the support of leading real estate consultant Knight Frank. Mike Tuohy its director, regional head said: "Knight Frank has been proud to work with and support the work of NGB CLEAN, as a social enterprise making a difference in the industry and we are really looking forward to incorporating this incredible recycling initiative in our managed buildings.

"Office buildings across the UK have improved their facilities available to the thousands of cyclist community and we look forward to seeing the impact this NGB CLEAN initiative will have."

Founders of Velorim Richard Lawrence and Russ Taylor added: "We are delighted to be working in partnership with NGB CLEAN in developing this groundbreaking recycling service in the corporate and commercial environment and working to recover and recycle the estimated 10,000,000 kilos of inner tubes and tyres currently going into landfill every year. We are dealing with cycling's last dirty secret!"

For more information about the scheme email: samantha@nogoingback.uk

To find out more about NGB CLEAN visit: nogoingback.uk/cleaning-social-enterprise