REculture: A post consumption economy

via worldbike.org

Worldbike, in collaboration with UN-HABITAT and a local youth group, is using customised bicycles to explore rubbish-handling enterprises in some of Kenya's most impoverished neighbourhoods. Worldbike is a non-profit that designs, distributes and promotes bicycles as an alleviator of development challenges.

Andrew Hall, Worldbike's project manager in Kenya, describes their goals as 'income generation, livelihood creation and essential service provision, but usually in the model they go hand in hand'...

To accomplish this, they're developing sustainable solid waste management businesses for and in partnership with poor communities. 'People need solid waste management. That's an essential service,' Hall says. 'But we also want to do it in a way that creates livelihoods.'

In turn, the businesses act as incubators, live experiments in which Worldbike can use its expertise in non-motorized transport to customize everything from bicycles and handcarts to business models and community relationships.

'Worldbike wants to scale its impacts,' he says. 'If you want to have big impacts, then you need to come up with a model that is going to be reproducible to a level that impacts a lot of people's lives.' Piloting their work here at a small scale allows them to invest in a more holistic design phase, working closely with communities to assess their needs and develop solutions to problems as they arise.

Read more on The Ecologist and at Worldbike.