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Australia: Melbourne Officials Vote to Ban Rental E-scooters

Hire e-scooters are lined up in Melbourne's central business district (CBD) on August 13, 2024. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)
Hire e-scooters are lined up in Melbourne's central business district (CBD) on August 13, 2024. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)
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Australia: Melbourne Officials Vote to Ban Rental E-scooters

Hire e-scooters are lined up in Melbourne's central business district (CBD) on August 13, 2024. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)
Hire e-scooters are lined up in Melbourne's central business district (CBD) on August 13, 2024. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)

Melbourne has become the latest city to ban rental e-scooters, abruptly moving to end a trial contract with two firms after a community revolt.

After a six-to-four council vote late Tuesday, city authorities said they would give operators Lime and Neuron 30 days to rid the city center of the two-wheeled contraptions.

Mayor Nicholas Reece -- a former executive at the men's health charity Movember -- backed the move and said it had popular support.

He alleged scooters had been scattered around the city "like confetti", posing a risk to the community.

For fans, e-scooters are a transport revolution -- allowing commuters to zip around crowded cities with ease and at minimal cost.

For detractors, they are injury-inducing street litter and a hipsters' plague on peaceful pedestrians.

In just two decades, e-scooters have grown into a worldwide market worth tens of billions of dollars a year.

But Melbourne follows cities from Barcelona to Montreal in banning or limiting where e-scooters can go.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales report the growth of e-scooters has brought a rise in related injuries and hospital admissions, mostly from men aged in their late 20s to early 30s.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital recorded 256 e-scooter-related injuries in 2022.

Rental company Neuron Mobility said Melbourne's "drastic" decision was made without "proper discussion".

"We still believe that Melbourne is an excellent city for e-scooters," Neuron's local general manager Jayden Bryant told AFP.

"If given the opportunity, we could quickly implement a variety of measures to address many, if not all, of the councilors’ concerns."

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Varieties

Waste into Gold: Oyster Shells Repurposed as Magic 'Seawool'

Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP
Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP
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Waste into Gold: Oyster Shells Repurposed as Magic 'Seawool'

Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP
Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP

Growing up on Taiwan's west coast where mollusc farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function -- a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called "Seawool".
Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes.
"They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer," the 42-year-old told AFP at his factory in Tainan.
"So I was curious about why oyster shells have such a miraculous effect."
Wang's Creative Tech Textile company, established in 2010, was already producing an "eco-fabric" -- a polyester material made out of recycled plastic bottles -- but he felt its texture was a bit "ordinary".
So he started working with a research institute to experiment making fabric out of the oyster shell residue, in 2013 coming up with the right formula that produces a material similar to wool.
The fabric and clothing generate around NT$200 million (US$6.1 million) a year, with the bulk of it sourced by outdoor and sustainability clothing brands in Europe and the United States.
The Made-in-Taiwan fabric would not be possible without the island's unique oyster farming culture, Wang said.
'A magical yarn'
"This industry chain cannot be found anywhere else overseas," he says.
"We have people to harvest oysters, we have specialists to clean oyster shells, and we have people for drying and calcining (treating) oyster shells."
But its popularity also means that about 160,000 tons of shells are discarded yearly, according to data from the agricultural ministry.
They pile up on the streets of aqua-farming towns -- the majority in western cities such as Yunlin, Changhua and Chiayi -- causing environmental issues by emitting fishy smells and providing breeding sites for mosquitos.
At Wang's factory, the shells are ground into nano beads and combined with yarn made from recycled plastic bottles.
"It creates a magical yarn," he said. "Oyster shell is a material with low thermal conductivity -- it does not absorb heat nor does it dissipate heat."
Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a "low-carbon product," said Wang.
A half-hour drive from his showroom where activewear jackets, sweaters and pants are displayed, state enterprise Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC) also has a factory that grinds discarded shells into a powder that is used in manufacturing household items, like incense sticks.
The crushed shells help to reduce smoke and the toxic chemicals emitted from burning incense, said Chen Wei-jen, deputy chief of TSC's biotech business division.
From waste to gold
"We hope oyster shells can have multiple industrial applications and interested companies can use it as a raw material to make their products more environmentally friendly and add value to their products," Chen said.
Before the shells get to the factories, farmers in Chiayi -- a county famed for producing oysters -- collect the molluscs at dawn from racks installed along the coast.
They are sorted into baskets before being sent to plants such as Dai Sen-tai's factory, where they are machine-washed before being sent to small family-run businesses that shuck the meat and send the shells south.
Dai, whose family have been in the oyster farming industry for three generations, said he is happy that Taiwan is breathing new life into the sea waste.
"When I was a child, no one wanted oyster shells -- they were dumped and discarded everywhere," he told AFP.
"It's good that the waste has been turned into gold now."