This Saturday I was playing basketball near the tennis courts with some fellow AU alums, and on my way back to my car-- in the space between the back of Bender and the track, near that parking lot for the service vehicles--
I noticed this:
Bikes! Just lying there! In a pile next to the dumpster labeled "SCRAP METAL"! WTF!
Our best guess was that this is what Public Safety, in it's boundless wisdom, does with the bikes parked illegally throughout campus. If not, they are probably ( or also) bikes that were left behind by students who moved off campus/ graduated. Aside from the obvious indignation at the waste of perfectly useful bikes per se, this is TERRIBLE environmentally! Bikes take a lot of energy to break down. They do make good scrap metal BUT it's preferable that the bikes be put back into circulation because its a double-environmental benefit if people choose to bike instead of drive...SO we shouldn't throw them out until they're completely unsalvageable. These bikes are completely salvageable.
I propose two things for those of you who still attend AU:
1. lobby Public Safety (or whoever is throwing the bikes out) to do something more constructive with them, like maybe donate them somewhere or auction them back to students?
2. Get yourselves a free bike! It was wide open for the taking on Saturday, as you can see, although that might just be because that's the day the trash is collected. PEOPLE WHO PARKED THEIR BIKES ILLEGALLY: Reclaim them! PEOPLE WHOSE BIKES HAVE BEEN STOLEN: Get your free replacement! BIKE THIEVES: Steal 'em from the dump instead of being a jerk and stealing from a fellow poor student!
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