Trek Bicycle: Great Bikes and Environmentally Conscious

The fact is you can recycle pretty much everything. From appliances to eyeglasses, almost everything can find second life as a new material or be reused as something similar.

Trek Bicycle announced in April that it will start full-scale scrap carbon fiber recycling at its Waterloo, Wisc. manufacturing facility, giving new life to a material that was once just discarded.

Carbon fiber is used frequently for frames because it’s affordable, lightweight and strong, but many other components are carbon fiber-based as well.

Trimmings from parts as well as accepted warranty frames are collected and shipped to Material Innovations Technologies in South Carolina. The carbon fiber is then reclaimed and used for a wide range of new applications in recreation, automotive, medical and aerospace.

Trek already partners with Alchemy Goods to recycle tire tubes, which are one of the most commonly replaced bike parts. Trek dealer stores send tire tubes to Alchemy, which uses the material to make Bontrager bags.