NGB Clean Launches ‘Ride, Recycle, Repeat’

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19 March 2025

Commercial cleaning social enterprise NGB Clean is making use of discarded inner tubes and tyres dumped in their clients’ office bike stores.

NGB Clean, a company that provides commercial cleaning services whilst supporting prison leavers into the FM sector, discovered that worn tyres and tubes were being discarded at a client site’s office bike stores, and discovered that they were being thrown out with general waste.

Bicycle retailers currently cannot directly dispose of scrap tyres, inner tubes and other cycle-specific waste through standard waste collection routes, as they are considered complex waste. In the UK over 10,000 tonnes of bicycle tyres and inner tubes go to landfill every year.

“At one of our contracts, we received a complaint that a bicycle inner tube was left on the floor of a bike store. When actioning this complaint, instead of simply disposing of the inner tube in the waste, we stopped and questioned what happens to it,” said Chief Operating Officer at NGB Clean, Sam Worden.

Sam and the team have collaborated with waste management firm Velorim, which will co-ordinate the recycling of the tyres and inner tubes, shredding the tyres and recycling them into materials such as non-slip flooring, cycle paths and construction materials.

NGB will arrange the placement of recycling bins in bike stores across London where cyclists can place worn tyres and tubes for collection. Sam hopes to recruit a prison leaver to carry out collections.

The scheme, “Ride, Recycle, Repeat” was launched at The Ray Farringdon, the London headquarters of LinkedIn. It has been endorsed by Knight Frank.

“Given that most medium to large buildings across London have bike stores and a large number of cyclists, NGB CLEAN believes it can make a huge impact,” continued Sam. “We are not driving this project with an expectation to make a profit but instead create something that will raise awareness and reduce waste going to landfill, and by utilising our access to property management companies we can really make a difference”.

Edith Velasquez, Building Manager at The Ray Farringdon, added: “I came across this initiative when Sam Worden presented at our Knight Frank Promise quarterly FM meeting and instantly knew this would be an initiative that my tenants, LinkedIn and Better Space, would be very enthusiastic about, as well as be a great addition to our existing recycling processes”.

Picture: From left to right: Michael Chapman, Operations Manager at NGB Clean, Edith Velasquez, Building Manager at The Ray Farringdon and Sam Worden, Chief Operating Officer at NGB Clean. They are standing in front of a desk with a recycling bin and discarded tubes and tyres, next to a roller banner advertising the scheme.

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 19 March 2025

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