Project Finds New Homes for Unwanted Bikes From US
This is the VOA Special English Development Report, from voaspecialenglish.com Americans bought an estimated eighteen and a half million bicycles last year. Some bikes never get much riding. Mostly they gather dust. But a project based in Washington is putting unwanted bikes from the United States to good use in developing countries. Keith Oberg is the director of Bikes for the World. He says “Everybody has an old bicycle, and it is usually not ridden. It sits there in the garage, or basement or shed, going to waste.” Stephen Popick recently had two bikes to donate. He brought in two mountain bikes that he and his wife rode for the past ten years. He said they would not be worth trying to sell but they could be useful to somebody else. Bikes for the World collects bicycles and delivers them at low cost to community programs in developing countries. It shipped more than five thousand bikes during the first eight months of this year. Last year it shipped about ten thousand three hundred. The bicycle recycling program is one of the largest in the United States. It is a sponsored project of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. Bikes for the World began in two thousand five. Since then it has shipped more than forty thousand bikes to communities in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, says director Keith Oberg. He said they are working with partners in seven countries. They have sent bikes to Namibia and the Gambia. In Central America they sent bikes to Panama, Costa …
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