On a recent trip to San Francisco I've remember seeing adverts for bicycle rentals at 18$ an hour. I think the idea of a disposable 'one week' bicycle for 30$ would be absolutely brilliant and cost effective for tourists.

I wonder if it would create a new kind of trash, though...

And ofcourse, a lot depends a lot on how the cardboard vehicles stack up against their metal equivalents in terms of usability.

Ixnay on the disposable.

Even if it's cardboard you have to consider how efficiently it can all be recycled and how much energy it takes to create it in the first place, and what happens with any parts that can't be recycled.

As an example, many North American cities are sending their recycling materials overseas, using up a ridiculous amount of fuel.

I guarantee you're doing a lot more for the environment buying used or renting / borrowing. Is it really so inconvenient?

But what is the nature of the failure? If the way you know the bike is ready to throw out is that it collapses underneath you, that's no good.

I imagine that for $20, the way you know the bike is ready to throw out is that you've been riding it for more than a week on vacation.

Sure, but why not keep it? Why not have them for normal bikes? Probably because they don't last. So how don't they last? By getting mushy and hard to pedal? That's fine. By collapsing underneath you? That's not.

And if they do exhibit catastrophic failure and just average a weeks lifespan, that's a non-starter, because maybe you collapse into the curb the second day you're riding one.

> Sure, but why not keep it?

Basically for the reason you gave: "So how don't they last? By collapsing underneath you?"

Planned obsolescence is a pretty old and valid concept. We specifically throw away many things before they get the chance to fail us catastrophically - drugs, brakes, etc.

> average a weeks lifespan

A week was a random number I pulled out of my hat, since that's a typical vacation length for me. Naturally the average would be much longer.