Can I Recycle My Bicycle Helmet?
Summary: We do not know of any recycling programs specifically for bicycle helmets. Some parts can be reused if you take the helmet apart. You may be able to put the outer shell in your regular plastic recycling bin, and you can crumble the EPS foam and use it for packing material or as a soil softener. We have a link to an EPS recycling program for the foam.
There are no organized national programs for reusing or recycling helmets. Some of the reasons that no programs want used ones are outlined in our page on buying a helmet at a yard sale. In brief, you can't be sure it has not been damaged.
Reuse
There are limited possibilities for reusing a helmet. You might plant flowers in it and hang it on your front porch. The vents are good for draining the pot if you overwater. The nylon strap should last for a long time. The helmet/planter will advertise to the world that you are a bicycle rider. Hunters might hang their old helmet in a tree and use it for target practice. Be careful of your backdrop, of course.
The EPS foam in your helmet is similar to the packing "peanuts" you get in boxes with all that stuff you buy over the Internet. So you can crumble that foam and use it to pack the cookies you send as holiday presents. Or you can crumble it into very small pieces and use it as a soil amendment, to lighten clay or other compacted soil. It can't be reused by helmet manufacturers. It would be structurally inferior if reused, and a helmet would have to be made much thicker and have more internal reinforcing or fewer vents to meet impact standards. There are enough quality control problems already with virgin EPS to discourage anybody from recycling it in a helmet.
Recycle?
Disposing of a helmet in an environmentally responsible way is not easy either. Most helmets have a plastic shell, EPS foam liner, nylon or polyethelene straps and a plastic buckle. Most local recycling programs don't want mixed materials. So your best solution may be to take the helmet apart, put the plastic shell in your plastic recycling, break up the EPS foam for use as packing material or a soil amendment, and pitch the strap and buckle in the trash.
But unless the manufacturer tells you in the helmet manual or on a label, you don't know if the plastic in the shell is recyclable. Some shells are made of PET, the same plastic used for bottled water. Those are recyclable, but others may not be. Only the manufacturer knows for sure. High-end helmets are often made from polycarbonate (GE's Lexan for example) and that can not be included in local recycling pickups. If your helmet has a fiberglass or ABS hard shell, that has to be pitched, since it is not recyclable in most local programs. Local programs vary in the plastics they can take, so you may need to check.
The Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers has a page on recycling EPS foam. You can remove the EPS from your helmet and mail it or take it to one of the sites they list. Just don't take it in a car and use the earth's non-renewable fossil fuel resources to get it there!
If your community has a "co-generation facility" that burns trash to make electricity, you can pitch the helmet in the trash knowing that at least it will not end up in a landfill, where the EPS would last for centuries. EPS burns cleanly, producing only carbon (C), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and water (H2O). It does not produce sulphur or heavy metals. The energy contributed to making electricity is considerable, since 1 kg of EPS=1.3 litres of oil. (We are indebted to Finnish EPS maker Epsira Oy for this info.)
If you find other ideas on recycling helmets, please let us know. Now that there are millions of old helmets being pitched or reused every year, the recycling question is well worth asking.
This page was last revised on: January 1, 2007.
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