Vocational Training and Placement: Durables Repair

Expansion of Recycle A Bicycle Program

Proposed and Endorsed by Waste Prevention Committee, and

Manhattan Citizens' Solid Waste Advisory Board

June 4, 1999

For several years, NYC DOS and the Manhattan Borough President's Office, in concert with Transportation Alternatives, has been funding and implementing a program, "Recycle A Bicycle" in City schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

For a nominal cost to the City, this program

  1. teaches skills and a marketable trade to our youth,
  2. keeps otherwise useful durable products out of the waste stream, saving the City money in collection and export costs, and providing tax deductions for those who donate bicycles, and
  3. provides the repaired bicycles, free of charge, to neighborhood nonprofit organizations and to the youth who repair them.

This proposed project would expand this successful program to include training in repair and restoration of other types of durable products (e.g., furniture, appliances, electronics) and would include a new feature, whereby students who complete the training program would be placed in summer jobs and apprenticeships in repair and restoration businesses. As is the case with the Recycle a Bicycle program, the schools would serve as drop-off locations; advertising for used durable products would be an important facet of the program until it is well known.

Funding Request -- total for 5 schools (one per borough)

Teaching Staff: 2 teachers x 15 hours each/week x 5 schools

$150K

Placement Staff: One FTE, including benefits

$ 40K

Advertising and Outreach Staff: One FTE, including benefits

$ 55K

NYC DOS Management staff: 1/4 FTE

$ 10K

Advertising purchases: Subway, print, radio ads

$ 235K

Tools, manuals, supplies

$ 10K

TOTAL

$ 500K

 

Program Benefits

All of the aforementioned benefits would continue with this project, but there would be some additional advantages of expanding the program:

  1. Placement of students into apprenticeships and summer jobs would motivate more students to participate, and
  2. The new apprenticeship program would provide low-cost, skilled labor to a sector of the economy that has been in decline for years, and which is essential to prevent the export and disposal of repairable furniture, small appliances, and electronics.

 

Potential for Future Expansion of the Program

More Schools

As more potential donors of repairable, durable products become familiar with the program, the program can be expanded to include more schools.

More Durable Products

As experience with the program grows, repair and restoration programs can be established for more types of durable products (e.g., computers, large appliances, interior restoration).

More Financial Support

As the repair/restoration industry sees the success of the program, they might be called upon to contribute.

Welfare Recipients / Settlement Houses

Programs could be set up for others who could benefit from, and contribute to the success of the program and the economic development of the repair industry.