
The Bamboo Bike Studio in Brooklyn, New York, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University are establishing factories to make sustainable bicycles in developing countries, starting with Ghana, Kenya, and Ecuador. The Brooklyn studio provides local participants with New Jersey—grown bamboo and a course on tube-cutting, mitering, and frame-binding. Pedals, wheels, handlebars, and a chain are added for a $1,000 fee, most of which goes straight back into the piggy bank to pay for additional factories, wages, education, food, and health care.

© 2009, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.