Uber sends thousands of bikes to NC scrap yard, drawing ire from cycling community
Thousands of electronic bikes are destined for a North Carolina scrap yard, drawing backlash from cycling advocates.
Technology company Uber said Friday it was sending the devices to recycling facilities after photos showing rows of shareable Jump bikes surfaced on social media.
Uber says it made the decision to scrap the parts after announcing it helped invest $170 million in bike and scooter company Lime, which would take over Jump operations, The Sacramento Bee reported.
“As part of our recent deal, Lime took possession of tens of thousands of new model Jump bikes and scooters,” Uber told McClatchy News in an emailed statement.
“We explored donating the remaining, older-model bikes, but given many significant issues — including maintenance, liability, safety concerns, and a lack of consumer-grade charging equipment — we decided the best approach was to responsibly recycle them,” the statement said.
Thousands of the bikes were bound for North Carolina, NBC News and The Verge reported. An Uber spokesperson on Friday confirmed the state was among the recycling sites but wouldn’t share a facility location with McClatchy News.
Lime in an email said it has started to “deploy” some of the e-bikes it acquired.
“We have not recycled any of the Jump e-bikes in our fleet and are committed to scaling and operating them during this critical time,” Lime said in its statement to McClatchy News.
Uber’s scrapping process isn’t sitting well with people who think older bicycles could be reused at a time when the devices are in demand.
“Bikes on bikes on bikes just being needlessly recycled instead of repurposed,” Twitter user Cris Moffitt wrote in a post last week.
The Bike Share Museum, which says it accepts donated bicycles, also weighed in.
“These could be transportation for the many who have been brought to financial ruin during COVID-19,” the organization said on its website.
Fear of public transportation and interest in exercise have led to a surge in people buying bicycles since the start of the pandemic, CBS News and The New York Times reported in May. Some cycling stores have reported shortages as the supply chain catches up, officials told the news outlets.
This story was originally published May 29, 2020 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Uber sends thousands of bikes to NC scrap yard, drawing ire from cycling community."
