Biking in itself is environmentally friendly. After all, you produce no exhaust fumes, no noise and don't cause mega traffic jams as long as you're on a bike. If you like, a bike is the most efficient and environmentally friendly way of travelling short to medium distances. If you sit on a mountain bike and whizz along trails through the forest, the attributes of efficiency and environmental friendliness are complemented by an extremely high fun factor. All of this makes the bicycle the means of transport of the future and ensures that more and more people are getting on their mountain bikes. All mobility designers and environmentalists would agree with this train of thought.
Great potential for improvement in the ecological footprint of bicycles
However, Nora Sophie Griefahn, Director of the Cradle to Cradle NGO, believes that we should not be satisfied with this. She sees "potential for improvement in all areas" in the production of bicycles. Bicycles are produced as economically and as cost-effectively as possible, but when it comes to design, the choice of materials and their processing into a bicycle, the idea of nature is usually neglected. Most bikes are built to work. When they no longer work, i.e. when they have exceeded their service life, what often remains is a product that is difficult to recycle, sometimes even hazardous waste.
The cradle-to-cradle principles
As a board member of the Cradle to Cradle NGO, Nora Sophie Griefahn fights for the absolutely sustainable manufacture of products. The cradle-to-cradle principle is therefore largely based on closed raw material cycles. Put simply, our society can only be truly sustainable in the long term if care is taken during the development of all products to ensure that they can be completely recycled at the end of their life cycle. If this idea is implemented consistently, humans will no longer be a pest in nature's ecosystem. No matter how much we consume.
Ideal raw material cycles
In an ideal world, therefore, no raw material is lost after the lifetime of a bicycle or mountain bike tyre, but remains either in a biological or technical cycle.
What are the biggest environmental problem areas in the production of mountain bikes?
We have taken a look at a few mountain bike components as examples to illustrate the potential for improvement.
Frame
Once a carbon fibre has been installed in the frame, it can no longer be recycled in its full length and quality. It is therefore used up or can only be used for inferior purposes. In most cases, carbon frames are not recycled at all. Metal frames have a much better balance here. However, there is also room for improvement in the production of aluminium frames. "I don't believe that 100 per cent of the electricity required for production comes from renewable energies," Nora Sophie Griefahn points out.
Suspension fork
A suspension fork consists of many components that are often pressed or glued together. In order to preserve the raw materials, it must be possible to disassemble it into its individual materials at the end of its service life. This last step in the life cycle of a fork is usually not taken into account in the product design.
Lacquer
During recycling, the paint cannot be separated from the frame in such a way that its raw materials can be reused. After use, it is waste that pollutes the environment.
Tyres
Tyre abrasion is released into the environment as microplastics. The rubber should therefore become biodegradable.
BRAKES
Brake pads cause abrasion, which must be biodegradable because it ends up in the environment. The brake fluid must also be environmentally friendly.
Packaging, transport from the production facility and the way in which production takes place also harbour potential for improvement, which we will not go into in detail in this first step.
What is our plan?
Because we are so enthusiastic about the cradle-to-cradle concept, we asked ourselves: Can we, together with the bike industry and input from our readers, build a completely sustainable mountain bike based on the cradle-to-cradle approach? What could such a bike look like? How will it ride? And what needs to be considered during production?
Help us to develop a sustainable mountain bike based on the cradle-to-cradle approach. There are certainly already many products in the mountain bike sector that pursue an extremely sustainable approach. If you are aware of such products or even produce them yourself, please send us an e-mail. simply send an e-mail to l.doehl@bike-magazin.de and we will dedicate a platform to these products in our project.
Seminar to sensitise the industry
In addition, we are looking for partners from the industry who are willing to share our conviction of the principles of the Cradle to Cradle society and are prepared to manufacture bicycle components according to these principles. If there is sufficient demand, we will organise a seminar together with the Cradle to Cradle NGO to sensitise employees in the bicycle industry to ecological production. We will accompany the exemplary production process of ecological components in the media. In the end, we want to assemble all the bicycle parts resulting from this project into a mountain bike, regardless of whether they are ready for series production or prototypes.
What is Cradle to Cradle?
Are you interested in the topic, but wondering what exactly Cradle to Cradle means? We have decided to pursue our project using the cradle-to-cradle approach because, in our opinion, it is one of the very few ecological approaches that does not demonise human consumption, but instead offers a positive picture of the future through its holistic approach. Further information on the cradle-to-cradle principle can be found on the website of the relevant non-governmental organisation: www.c2c.ngo
