Chinese bike-sharing firms pull 3,000 bikes out of rivers, vow to help reduce dumping
Companies planning to do more to discourage the misuse of bikes after clean-up operation offers evidence of the extent of the problem
The world’s two largest bike-sharing companies have recovered more than 3,000 bicycles from rivers during clean-up operations in southern China, according to newspaper reports.
Mobike collected more than 1,000 abandoned bicycles in two weeks from rivers in the central part of the city of Guangzhou, in Guangdong province, and found that 61 per cent of them were theirs, according to the Yangcheng Evening News report on Wednesday.
Its salvage operation followed a similar exercise started in April by Ofo, which has recovered nearly 2,000 bikes, the report stated.
Both based in Beijing, Ofo and Mobike are backed respectively by Alibaba, parent company of the South China Morning Post, and Meituan.
Mobike told Yangcheng Evening News that most of the units appeared to have been dumped at night by vandals after they were parked in areas near rivers.