As far as I know, all bicycle helmets are plastic. Helmets are required by state or municipal laws for many cyclists. The laws vary a great deal from place to place. If you are not required to wear a helmet, you have to make a personal decision. I was surprised to see much of the Wikipedia entry for bicycle helmets devoted to statistical arguments against compulsory use laws.
I think it would be irresponsible of me to suggest that anyone forgo the purchase of a bicycle helmet for the sake of reducing plastic consumption. Tree Hugger has a bunch of pictures of celebrities on bikes and many of them are not wearing helmets. Silly celebrities.
The obvious way to reuse a helmet is to give it to someone who needs a helmet. There are some problems with this. Many people advise against using second hand helmets because the may have been damaged in an accident by a previous owner. One green blog recommended repurposing your used helmet as a hanging planter. The fact that the blogger used a stock image of a new helmet for the post rather than a photograph of one with pansies bursting forth is telling.
The expanded polystyrene that makes up the bulk of most helmets is recyclable.
There is actually a LOT of acrimony on the Internet in relation to bicycle helmets. There must be a fairly big overlap of bikers and outspoken libertarians. When I was living in Canada, the whole family had helmets and we all wore them when cycling. We do not cycle in Tunisia, mostly because the traffic is less safe than in Canada.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
The main trouble with bicycle helmets is not libertarianism. The trouble is that they probably don’t work – laws have stopped a lot of people cycling and have done nothing for head injury rates, see http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a. It appears that helmets break easily, but don’t absorb the impact, try reading the helmet engineers quoted in the Wikipedia article. A broken helmet has simply failed. Helmets have also strangled some young children who were wearing helmets while playing off their bicycles. At my moderately advanced age it’s far too dangerous not to cycle – regular cycling, Danish style, not too far, not too fast, nearly halves the death rate, see http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1621 All-Cause Mortality Associated With Physical Activity During Leisure Time, Work, Sports, and Cycling to Work. Andersen et al, Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1621-1628. To be sure, in Tunisia things may be different to Denmark. But the waste of plastic is the same in any country.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
[...] If you are ever planning a costume that involves headgear, reuse helmets or safety hats rather than making something from [...]