People look at you funny when you tell them you do tree work but don‘t own a car. Until you tell them you‘ve got the next best thing: a bright orange cargo bike!

Keeping my footprint as small as possible is important to me, as is not contributing further to the urban traffic fumes we’re all choking on. I’d never go so far as to say that electric vehicles are an actual sustainable solution, because well, the way the rare earths and minerals for the batteries are mined, usually at the expense of local communities who are being displaced and workers who are being exploited… that’s neither ok nor sustainable. My other day job is translating for Amnesty International, so straight from the horse’s mouth: The human rights violations and ecological implications of mining battery components are shocking. And it’s important we remind ourselves that every single ‘consumer choice’ we make nowadays comes at a cost, to someone somewhere. There are political choices to be made and activist battles to be fought around this. In the meantime, we make the best choices we feel we can. [#politicaltangent]

So I grappled with the implications of buying a cargo bike new and out of the box. Thankfully, I didn’t have to grapple for long, as my lovely neighbours were selling theirs and after some deliberation, I decided to go for it – it felt much more conscionable buying second-hand, and I’m happy to have provided Babs with a new home!

Next came a decision about her revamp: I wanted to build as big a rear crate as possible and reasonable, so needed to think about materials for that. We are lucky in Bristol to have the fantastic Bristol Wood Recycling Project, a very well-stocked wood recycling place where I was able to get some used 12mm plywood. Much cheaper than buying new, plus so much more funky!

After cutting and sanding all the pieces, I am now busy assembling the box. Once screwed together, it’ll need some weatherproofing. I was going to use yacht varnish for this, but then found some free gloss paint which was going to be binned – perfect!

Very happy with my iterative recycling/upcycling project!