In Shanghai, Old Bicycles Never Die, They Just Rust Away

Bicycles, those of the clunky and rusty variety, are fast becoming an embarrassing eyesore here in China’s most fast-paced and image-conscious city.

They used to be considered a major luxury item. Along with watches and sewing machines, bicycles cost several months’ salary and enjoyed a lifetime of loving care.

Though still necessary and practical, after two decades of economic miracle they have also become cheap and disposable. Shabby bikes clog the roads, and abandoned ones are multiplying like weeds. Formal recycling centers are almost nonexistent.

For Shanghai residents, the bikes are a reminder of the distance China has to go to shed its image as a developing country.

“This is a special characteristic of China--poverty,” said a newspaper vendor surnamed Li, scanning the long stretch of dilapidated bikes crushed up against the railing next to his stall.

“If everybody has a car, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

As the world’s largest producer of bicycles, China churns out about 40 million a year, said Xin Yuanming, a researcher with the National Bicycle Information Center. Shanghai is one of the largest bicycle cities, with as many as 6.5 million registered riders.

Because there are no designated places to take unwanted bikes, every year nearly 700,000 of them are left wasting away in the stairwells of apartment buildings, lying on the sidewalks or even dumped into rivers and creeks.

“If we are the kingdom of bicycles, then we should also be the kingdom of bicycle management,” said a neighborhood committee member who gave his name as Zhao. “But nobody wants to take the responsibility.”

It’s not a thought that crosses the minds of the bicycle makers.

“We don’t consider what to do with old bikes,” said Chen Xinggao, a marketing director with Phoenix, which produced about 3 million bikes last year.

Although armies of bikes are growing old every day in Shanghai, there are only two tiny recycling centers assigned to scoop them up, disassemble them and crush them into scrap metal. Together the centers can handle only about 30,000 bikes a year.

A small percentage of reusable bicycles are resold. But nearly 95% of the abandoned bicycles have no official means of being regenerated.

The bigger of the two recycling centers has 30 employees and the other only 15, according to the managers.

Instead of being private enterprises, they are government outfits that operate under the jurisdiction of the state police bureau, which gives the centers permission to collect abandoned bicycles and issues them resale permits.

So, not just anybody can go out and clean up throwaway bikes.

Parking lot attendants who run out of space are forced to pile up heaps of mangled metal when it’s obvious that the owners are never coming back.

The police and neighborhood committees sweep up the bikes during designated cleanup campaigns, especially around major holidays.

“People’s awareness is limited, and recycling centers don’t see too much financial benefit,” said Xin, the bicycle center researcher. “We need the government’s support to improve the situation.”

Some ideas on the table include allowing riders to trade in their old bikes, mandating how many years bikes can be on the road and charging a disposal fee at the point of purchase.

But is it worth the effort?

Residents say they usually don’t have to worry about getting rid of their old bikes because the theft rate is so high these days that most bikes don’t stick around long enough to get old.

“I have 12 bikes,” joked one local resident whose bike was stolen. He picks up someone else’s parked bike when he needs a ride and leaves it wherever he ends up, a common practice, locals say, especially among college students and migrant workers.

“In the old days, bikes were precious commodities. People parked them at home and kept them from 10 to 30 years,” said Huang Jianqing, a manager at the Resource Recycling Co., which takes in residential and industrial waste but not bicycles. “But now people’s salaries are so much higher, and there are so many more bikes on the market. It’s not very important to them anymore.”