The Group Pedaling to a Cleaner Earth

What would you think if saw someone riding a bike with a bunch of garbage bins attached to it?
For residents in Austin, Texas, this site isn’t uncommon. That’s because since December 2012, the East Side Compost Pedallers (ESCP) have been riding around, collecting trash to be composted by local urban farms, schools and community gardens.
“Scrapple” is how the cyclists affectionately refer to the compostable food waste which they collect. Currently, the group is comprised of seven bikers who serve residences in east Austin and neighborhoods by the University of Texas, as well as local businesses such as DropBox and small cafes.
Cyclists are equipped with custom-built, heavy-duty Metrofiet cargo bikes that can carry 55 gallon barrels totaling 250 pounds each. They also have the option of riding retro-filled pedicabs, which can carry barrels weighing 800 pounds each.
The for-profit organization charges for its services: For residences, it’s $4 per week, while the cost varies for businesses depending upon their size and the amount of bins required.
Over the past two years, ESCP has seen a growing client base and massive results. Among its achievements, the group can boast that it has redirected more than 190,000 pounds of scrapple from landfills, produced 50,000 pounds of compost, reduced the costs of composting by $5,000 for farmer patrons and stopped the emission of about 30 tons of methane, according to Good.
Their clients have also noticed how beneficial the service has been, too. Composting for the past 27 years, the East Side Café started using ESCP six months ago. So far, the café has redirected 7,155 pounds of waste and prevented more than a ton of methane emissions.
Perhaps the most defining feature of the group, though, is their drive to improve the environment and the community.
“East Side Compost Peddallers are pioneering the compost movement in Austin,” Elaine Martin, Eastside Cafe’s chef and owner, tells Good. “They’re out there pedaling every day, and you can tell they’re passionate about what they’re doing and want to make our community a better place to live. It’s great to work with people who care about your neighborhood as much as you do.”
And with that, keep pedalling, please.
MORE: It May Sound Like a Potty Humor, But This Campaign to Conserve Water is Serious Business

Put Your Hands Together for the Heroes Competing in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games

You’ve heard of the Olympic Games. And you’re probably familiar with the Special Olympics and the Paralympics. But have you heard of the National Veterans Wheelchair Games?
The games, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Paralyzed Veterans of America, has grown every year to become the largest annual wheelchair sports competition in the world. This year, a record number of participants — 660 athletes — have registered to compete in 17 different events that will be held from August 12 to 17 in Philadelphia.
One of the athletes is new to his sport: Ellwood “Woody” Allen of Philadelphia. During the Vietnam war, Allen served in Army and was stationed for much of his service at Fort Benning in Georgia, where he was a behavior-science specialist helping veterans returning from the war cope with what they had witnessed, what they had lost and how they would rejoin the civilian world. Two years ago, Allen lost his leg due to an infection.
After his leg was amputated, Allen was the one who needed help. As a means of recovery, he began cycling using a borrowed bike from a veterans group that sponsors adaptive sports.
Meanwhile, a Disabled American Veterans (DAV) chapter in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, was looking to donate an adaptive tricycle to a deserving vet. A member of the DAV, Bill Pinkerton, told Kristin E. Holmes of the Philadelphia Inquirer that they decided to donate a trike because, “it gives you mobility, hand-eye coordination and it gets you outside and meeting people. After trauma, you need to get out.”
A counselor at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center connected the DAV with Allen, who rejoiced over receiving the red adaptive tricycle. “The fact that they were willing to help somebody, I hate to say I feel emotional, because we’re grown men and we’re not supposed to,” Allen told Holmes.
Allen will compete as a member of the Philly Phever team at the National Veterans Wheelchair Games. For him, victory will mean “not finishing last.”
MORE: Can Riding Tricycles Help These Injured Vets?

Cycling Tourism Has the Potential to Transform This Hardscrabble New Mexico Town

While Gallup, New Mexico is known as the “Heart of Indian Country” because of the many nearby reservations and its sizable presence of Native Americans (who comprise 76 percent of Gallup’s McKinley County), that wasn’t always the case.
Back in the 1970s and 80s, Gallup became notorious for something else: The fact that, each year, police put 30,000 people in the drunk tank. Many of those arrested were Native Americans who flocked to Gallup since it was one of the nearest places where they could purchase alcohol, Jonathan Thompson writes for the High Country News.
But now a group of entrepreneurs, Gallup boosters, and outdoor enthusiasts are working to make the town famous for something much better (and undoubtedly, much healthier) — mountain biking.
Chuck Van Drunen, who lived near a vacant lot known as the Brickyard, contributed to the bike-centered transformation of this gritty town. Until 1960, the Brickyard held kilns for brick-making, but after that, it became a neglected piece of property where drunkards and transients hung out. Van Drunen tired of booze-addled people wandering in the alley behind his house, so he started leading bicycle trail rides over the Brickyard.
It caught on, and Gallup’s mayor Jackie McKinney convinced the owners of the Brickyard to donate or sell the land to the city. Community members hired a bike park designer to plan proper trails and enlisted the Youth Conservation Corps to clean things up. In September, the Gallup Brickyard Bike Park officially opened.
Thompson writes, “Over the last 15 years, local bike-advocates have built and designated dozens of miles of trails in the nearby desert and forests and spiffed up the old downtown.”
Various bike enthusiasts formed the nonprofit Gallup Trails 2010, working to establish trails throughout Gallup and the nearby Zuni mountains. And while no one thinks Gallup is on track to become the next Moab — Utah’s mountain biking mecca — the town now hosts mountain biking races and is beginning to attract outdoor adventure tourists.
Does the enthusiasm for mountain biking have the ability to turn around Gallup’s tough economic situation? Currently, more than a third of McKinley County’s population live below the poverty line, and its unemployment rate sits at 8.5 percent, substantially higher than New Mexico’s overall rate of 6.8 percent. Still, the bike trails and cycling-centered tourism promotion seem to be moving the city in the right direction.
Lindsay Mapes, the owner of Zia Rides, a Gallup bike-race promoter, said that when she used to tell people where she lived, she’d get a pitying or disgusted “Gallup Look.” “Now it’s like: ‘Oh, yeah, I love it there. The trails are great!’ I love it when I see locals interacting with someone in the outdoor community, boasting about the assets we have. There’s a lot of community pride.”
“Sometimes, I see it as a revolution,” she said. “This group is really using the bike as an agent of change.”
MORE: The Two-Wheeler to the Rescue
 
 

Houston Bikers Need Safe Roads. Here’s the Simple Plan to Make That Happen.

Last month, the Houston Chronicle posted some shocking numbers: At least 23 bike riders have been killed on city streets in the past five years.
Those deaths directly conflict with a pro-biking culture that the city is trying to promote. Initiatives such as Houston Bike Share and various trail expansions have encouraged residents to explore and commute on their two wheelers. And the city is only going to get more bike-friendly in the future — the Bayou Greenways 2020 projects aims to creating a continuous city system of 150 miles of parks and trails along Houston’s bayous, the Complete Streets approach will incorporate all types of transportation onto city streets, and Sunday Streets HTx already shuts off certain streets to vehicles for safe pedestrian and biker enjoyment.
Mayor Annise D. Parker hopes to keep those current and future bikers safe by eliminating cycling fatalities. Her effort —the  “Goal Zero” program for bike safety — was announced on March 25, following the example of New York City and San Francisco.
According to a press release from the Mayor’s office, education and laws are key to the plan. “Mayor Annise Parker today announced the City and BikeHouston are joining forces to launch a major bike safety campaign to enforce and educate motorists and cyclists about the existing Safe Passing Ordinance, as well as create a Bicycle Master Plan for the City,” the statement read.
The first step will be tighter traffic law enforcement. As most drivers know, cyclists are expected to follow the same stop sign and traffic light laws as cars. Parker stated in the press release that the Houston Police Department will keep both sides in check by ticketing drivers who violate the new Safe Passing Ordinance (which requires a space of three feet between bike and car) and cyclists that disregard traffic laws.
“Whether on a bike or behind the wheel, we have to abide by the rules of the road and learn how to share the road safely,” Parker said. “Unfortunately, a spate of recent bicycle fatalities on Houston streets indicates there is much work to be done in this area. As a first step, I am dedicating $50,000 toward the cost of a Bicycle Master Plan that will guide our future decisions regarding placement of dedicated on-street bike lanes and infrastructure.”
In February, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio introduced a Vision Zero plan geared toward eliminating all traffic deaths, while San Francisco’s WalkFirst plan, introduced earlier this month, aims to safeguard the city’s most dangerous intersections for pedestrians. Though their effects still have yet to be seen, greater awareness and care among drivers, bikers, and walkers, can only promote safety. With biking becoming an increasingly popular mode of transportation in cities around the country, these measures will likely continue to see copycats like Houston.