Session to explore upcycling program

A NON-profit initiative aimed at saving weathered bikes from landfill will form the focus of this month’s Smart Living Ballarat workshop.

Taking place next week, the free session will entail a tour through bicycle revival initiative ReCranked’s Wendouree facility.

Smart Living Ballarat coordinator Ellen Burns said the upcoming event is about giving everyone an insight into what the ReCranked program does.

“A lot of people still don’t know they exist or about what they do and that you can get sized up for a bike for free,” she said.

“The program refurbishes donated bikes and gives them away to people for free. This is the first time it will feature in our program.

“I did a tour of the Ballarat Tool Library last year, and I’m interested in doing a tour of initiatives like this every year.

“When I did the tool library tour, there were people who’d never heard of it and they had six or seven new members join. Hopefully this session has similar success.”

The tour will be headed by ReCranked founder Wallace Martin, who will begin the session with a talk on what the initiative is about.

Excluding the tour itself, Martin’s presentation will be livestreamed.

ReCranked has operated at 16 Holly Grove, next to Wendouree Neighbourhood House since last year, and was previously located near the suburb’s Youth Hub.

“Smart Living Ballarat is all about living sustainably but also addressing cost of living pressures and where those two issues meet,” Ms Burns said.

“With ReCranked, it’s doing both of those things. It’s reducing waste while giving people active transport and less reliance on cars.

“ReCranked isn’t a global phenomenon as yet. It was started in Ballarat and it’s come out of the community with potential wide-reaching influence.”

The tour will run from 12.30pm to 1.30pm on Wednesday 28 August.