Years of Support for Re-Cycle
For a number of years, Maidstone Riverside Rotary Club has been one of Re-Cycle’s fantastic community partners, organising an annual bike collection that has saved hundreds of unwanted bikes from landfill while helping improve lives across Africa.
Held each autumn, the “Bikes and Tools for Africa” collection encourages local residents to donate unwanted bicycles that still have life left in them. Since 2024, the event has also expanded to collect unwanted tools in support of our friends at TWAM (Tools with a Mission), giving even more people the opportunity to make a difference.
The Rotary Club’s commitment has seen the collection grow into a well-established annual event, with roughly the following number of bikes collected each year:
- 2021: Around 120 bikes
- 2022: Around 70 bikes
- 2023: Around 188 bikes
- 2024: Around 210 bikes
- 2025: Around 95 bikes
That’s nearly 700 bikes collected over the past five years.
With Maidstone being within easy reach of our warehouse, our team is able to collect many of the donated bikes using the Re-Cycle van, while others are kindly delivered directly to us.
Every collection is made possible by the dedication of Maidstone Riverside Rotary Club members and the generosity of local residents who choose to donate their unwanted bikes instead of letting them go to waste.
These bikes will go on to support our work with trusted partners across Africa, where they are refurbished by trained local mechanics and provide reliable transport for people travelling to school, work, and healthcare. At the same time, the collections help keep hundreds of bikes in use and out of landfill here in the UK.
We are incredibly grateful to Maidstone Riverside Rotary Club for their continued commitment and support. Their annual collection has become an important part of Re-Cycle’s calendar, demonstrating the long-term impact a dedicated community partnership can have.
