A new Washington state law bans heavy metals in brakes and requires phasing out copper that's contributing to water pollution and harming fish. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
States are considering laws to phase out a material used in brake pads on cars and trucks. Lester Graham reports… it’s contributing to water pollution that’s affecting fish.
Transcript
States are considering laws to phase out a material used in brake pads on cars and trucks. Lester Graham reports… it’s contributing to water pollution that’s affecting fish.
There’s a fair amount of copper in brake pads. Every time you put on the brakes… some of brake pad and the copper in it is worn off. It ends up on the pavement and eventually is washed into a stream or lake. That’s been causing some concern in the state of Washington where too much copper is hurting the salmon. A new state law bans heavy metals in brakes and requires phasing out copper.
Curt Augustine is with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. He says they worked with lawmakers and environmentalists to come up with the plan. Other states might adopt it.
“Bills have been introduced in California and Rhode Island and likely similar bills will end up in some of the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay states.”
The Washington law calls for brakes to contain no more than five percent copper by 2021 and then consider using even less in later years.
During the warmer months, this free bike garage near Chicago’s Millennium Park is filled to the brim, but on this winter day, it has room to spare. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
There are some people so determined to fight pollution and traffic congestion that they bike instead. There are even some brave souls who bike year-round, come good weather or bad. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee meets one woman who wants to join them:
Transcript
There are some people so determined to fight pollution and traffic
congestion that they bike instead. There are even some brave souls who
bike year-round, come good weather or bad. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Shawn Allee meets one woman who wants to join them:
For a lot of people, transportation’s more than just a way of getting from
point A to point B. They take it personally. They want to cut air
pollution, use less energy, or they want to save money on commuting.
For those kinds of reasons Julie Lenfest doesn’t own a car. For years, she
relied on buses, but she hated them. They ran late. They didn’t go
everywhere. She was fed up, so she tried biking.
“I hate to beat down on the buses, but I got really frustrated with the
buses and it made me want a car, and then having a bike made me not want a car
anymore … it took that whole frustration away.”
For a while, each ride was a kind of … personal triumph.
That was fine while she lived in California, but Julie’s routine hit a snag
after she moved to Chicago. She was used to mild, Californian winters,
not blustery, frigid Midwestern winters. Sometimes the cold here gets so
bad it brings tears to your eyes. No wonder Julie chickened out last
winter. She stayed off her bike and hopped the bus instead.
“I don’t know, just, ah, talked myself out of it, but we’ll see. Now, I need
adventure.”
Julie started thinking about winter biking weeks before there was any
snow. She needed advice. So, she came to a seminar on how to prep
herself and her bike for winter. She’s come to the right place.
“I’m Alex Wilson. This is my shop, West Town Bikes … (continue)”
If anyone’s capable of teaching Julie and the other folks here, Alex is.
He’s more than just a winter biker and expert repairman. He’s a bike
evangelist.
“I just can’t find any inherent bad in bikes. Plus, bikes are fun, you know.
What better reason to be interested in bikes than, bikes are a lot of fun?”
Alex starts the class with how to keep warm. The trick’s not to get too
warm, otherwise you get drenched in sweat. Layering’s good, but
there’re no hard and fast rules about which long underwear goes with
what rain gear. Alex says trial-and-error works best.
Then there’s safety. Alex suggests putting reflective tape on your bike as
well as your jacket.
“Motorists are not looking for cyclists in the winter, so you need to be
seen.”
The next lesson’s about street salt. Salt corrodes your bike and can make
it hard to peddle.
“After after you’ve gotten to your destination, do this:”
(Sound of a bang)
“Bounce your bike hard and knock off all the stuff that’s built up on your
bike.”
Alex says all this mechanical advice is important but misses the point.
“The biggest thing that holds people back from biking in the winter is not
any gear or special equipment. It’s having the will to do it or having the
courage to do it.”
And there’re plenty of things to be scared of. Everything from being seen
in geeky winter outfits to more serious stuff, such as frostbite, but Julie’s
encouraged and she peddles out of the seminar, with her resolve intact.
(Sound of bike wheel)
A month later, I meet Julie to see whether her determination was a match
for the weather. Today, she’s biked to an outdoor ice rink. Snow’s
heaped along the sidewalks and we can see our breath. While she laces
her skates, she tells me the good news first. Turns out, she hasn’t been
alone.
“There are other people winter biking, I thought I’d be the only person.”
These strangers offered useful tips on clothes and safe routes.
There have been problems, though. Early on, Julie was looking for
adventure, but she changed her tune after the season’s first major storm.
“There was snow and it was slippery and they hadn’t put salt down yet.
So I decided I would walk on the sidewalk because I didn’t trust my
brakes and I didn’t trust other people’s brakes.”
That day sapped the fun out of winter biking, but she realized something
else. She’s kind of over the thrill. She’ll keep biking, but more and more,
it’s just the way she gets around. She doesn’t have to prove anything to
her friends.
“They just don’t understand how you can live without having a car, and
I’m just tired of explaining it to them over and over. So, I just say I can be
there at this time and I don’t tell them how I’m getting there; it’s my
business.”
So, she doesn’t talk about it so much anymore. It’s good to cut down on traffic or
save energy, but winter biking’s not so easy. If she chooses to keep it at, it’ll
be because she enjoys it, not because someone’s convinced her she has to. That’s
to say, it’s personal, and, to her, important.
A volunteer at re-Cycles looks for a replacement. Volunteers teach bike repair to amateurs and novices. Their goal is to get people out of their cars and onto their bikes. Photo by Lisa Routhier.
When it comes to bicycles, many of us are weekend warriors. The thought of riding a bike to work is intimidating – especially given the chance it might break down. Now, some cycling advocates are helping ordinary people become amateur bike mechanics. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly visited a community-run repair shop and has this report:
Transcript
When it comes to bicycles, many of us are weekend warriors. The thought of riding a
bike to work is intimidating – especially given the chance it might break down. Now,
some cycling advocates are helping ordinary people become amateur bike mechanics.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly visited a community-run repair
shop and has this report:
(ambient sound in shop)
It’s the perfect day to work on your bike.
Rainy and cold. But the forecast says warmer weather is ahead.
And that’s why people and bikes are packed into a so-called
bicycle cooperative based in Ottawa, Canada. It’s called Recycles.
And it’s a bike repair shop that’s open to everyone.
Its walls are lined with cookie tins filled with greasy bicycle
parts. Fenders and inner tubes hang from the ceiling.
For just a few bucks an hour, you can get a bike stand, access to
tools and advice from mechanics.
The shop is run by ten volunteers who keep it open two nights a
week and on Sundays.
Mark Rehder is the coop’s director. He’s a firm believer that anyone can fix a bike.
“If they’re a complete novice, we’ll start. We’ll sort of,
‘here.’ We’ll do it or show them and hand them the screwdriver or
the wrench and say ‘you keep doing that and when you get that part
off, let me know.’ And then so the head mechanic will move on to
someone else and the person, ‘okay, I’ve got the thingamajig off’
and we’re ‘okay, now you have to clean that out’ and just step by
step…guide them through the thing.”
The coop was started seven years ago by a group of dedicated
cyclists. Lloyd Deane is one of the coop’s founders. He says their
mission is simple – to get people out of their cars.
“There is an alternative out there and it’s quiet, it’s
healthy, it’s cheap, it’s uncomplicated and you can actually fix
it yourself and we’re a living testament that people with no
mechanical skills whatsoever can come in here and fix their own
transportation.”
(pedals turning)
Volunteer mechanic Rob Galdins focuses intently on the bicycle
wheel spinning in front of him. He works on one side of the bike
as a client tightens nuts on the other.
“We’re putting on some new brake pads and we’re just sort of
centering the brakes so that they hit the rim squarely…
And yeah, tighten that nut. There’s already a nut there. Okay….”
Nearby, volunteer Jennifer Niece is making the wheel true on her
own bike. She says this experience has changed the way she uses
her bicycle.
“I do a lot of touring and I wasn’t really able to do that by
myself until I started volunteering here because if I got a flat
tire or if my brakes busted or something out on the road, I
wouldn’t have been able to fix it. So it’s really valuable for me
to learn that.”
When the volunteers aren’t helping other people, they’re refurbishing
used bikes. They sell them to keep the operation going. But the
group also receives some outside support.
Most of their tools and parts are supplied by the Mountain
Equipment Co-op, a Canadian nonprofit that sells outdoor gear.
Mark Vancoy is the social and environmental coordinator at the
Ottawa store. He says they support Recycles because it fills a void in the
community.
“If you were to go to a bike shop, a lot of times … the
shop rate is, for most people, sort of out of range for them. So this
really empowers people to be able to one, afford to have a bike
and two, to keep them up in working order.”
The bicycle co-op is probably one of the smallest volunteer
organizations in Ottawa. It has a tiny budget, no rules, and virtually no
hierarchy. But the leader of this band of volunteers, Mark Rehder, is
convinced it’s an ideal way to change society.
“It’s great to go up on parliament hill and wave the signs,
‘down with Bush’ or whatever, but at a local level is where change
is most effective. It’s just little groups like us, doing little
things and connecting with the other little groups and maybe every
now and then sort of pulling out a pillar that was propping up
something society didn’t need anyways.”
(sound of bike shop)
Rehder says sometimes they’ll talk about politics. Mostly, they’re focused on
flat tires and broken chains. But many of them share the same dream –
they look forward to a day when cyclists will have the roads to themselves.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
A new Washington state law bans heavy metals in brakes and requires phasing out copper that's contributing to water pollution and harming fish. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
