After a wave of bike-sharing companies cropped up across China more than three years ago, the industry has since dwindled to near non-existence. This has left tens of millions of bicycles rotting inside so-called bicycle graveyards, with local authorities now forced to find solutions to get rid of the blight on their cityscapes.
As of today, there are still around 25 million abandoned bicycles left inside large graveyards in major Chinese cities. City officials have recently imposed a compulsory retirement scheme to scrap all remaining bicycles by sending them to recycling plants. The bill to take the bicycles off the streets and warehouses will be footed by taxpayers.
Out of the 70 large bike-sharing companies, three only remain. All others have gone bust. While some of the companies were able to export their bicycles to other countries others have been forced to abandon their assets.
Shenzhen-based photographer, Wu Gouyung, who had made a name for himself in documenting the millions of abandoned bicycles around the country, said that the government had so far been moving to get rid of most of the graveyards. He added that since his photographs had gone viral, the government has moved to clean up the mess. One of the largest piles he had photographed was a graveyard of more than 200,000 rusting bicycles in the Fujian provincial city of Xiamen. The gigantic pile left out in the open formed little mountains of rust, raising health and safety concerns from local residents.
The rise and fall of the bike-sharing craze in China have become one of the country's more quirky trend phenomena. Billions of dollars in investments had been lost during the trend, which rose and crashed within just four years. The industry had made a number of tech entrepreneurs into overnight billionaires, while at the same time burning down some more established companies.
According to data published by China Money Network, more than $5 billion was invested into five of the largest Chinese bike-sharing companies since 2014. At least two of the more than 70 companies, namely Ofo and Mobike, became unicorn startups. Both companies surpassed market valuations of more than $1 billion.