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EARTHWORKS@Home

Welcome to EARTHWORKS@Home.  On this page you'll find information and advice to help you make responsible choices in your home, as a consumer, and in your community.

Check back at this space periodically for more news about how you can help protect communities and the environment.  Each month a new report, analysis, consumer tip, or action will be profiled, along with an archive of articles and reports and links to related organizations.


Bikes for the World:
Instead of dumping your old bike,
let it improve someone's life overseas

It's easy to buy a bike in the United States.  They're relatively cheap and easily available. 

Not so
in many overseas communities. New bicycles typically are imported and subject to heavy taxes, forcing many people to walk.  

Bikes for the World (BfW) addresses this problem by collecting used bikes in the U.S. and shipping them abroad. Overseas charities sell the reconditioned BfW-donated bicycles at affordable, often credited, rates. 

EARTHWORKS and Bikes-for-the-World have something in common--a commitment to the environment and to keeping metals and other waste in the economy and out of landfills.  The more bikes we re-use and recycle the better.  That's why EARTHWORKS and BfW will be partnering to promote bicycle re-use and recycling.

Bicycle Collection for Bikes for the World. Credit BfW
Photo credit: BfW

BfW, a project of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, was created to assist impoverished people by providing an avenue of personal transport to school, work, and health services.

You can help BfW by donating your old bike.  Or you could help sponsor a BfW bike collection.  Either way you help make a difference in the global community by:

  • Helping the poor in other countries become more productive
  • Reducing waste in the United States
  • Making a tangible difference in someone's life
  • Stimulating reflection about business, economics, and transportation policy.

In the U.S., BfW collects bikes in coastal cities between Delaware and North Carolina. BfW currently donates bicycles and related material to non-profits in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.

If you would like to donate a bicycle or learn more, please visit www.bikesfortheworld.org.

Community Voices

Rosia Montana, Romania

"It is time for Romania to refuse projects, which whilst being promoted to greatly contribute to development, in effect will have disastrous impacts on all sectors truly important to life."

News

Behind Gold's Glitter: Torn Lands and Pointed Questions

There has always been an element of madness to gold's allure.

Golden Gamble in Grass Valley: A Legacy of Risk

At the Idaho-Maryland Mine, up to four tons of ore would have to be processed to produce one ounce of gold. But the steps taken to scrape together that ounce pose what scientists call two of the mining industry's biggest environmental risks: cyanide contamination and acid mine drainage.

A High Regard for the Earth

David Maisel's Aerial Photos Re-Survey the Boundaries Between Ugly and Beautiful

Publications

Predicting Water Quality Problems at Hardrock Mines -- an EARTHWORKS white paper

A Failure of Science, Oversight, and Good Practice