When Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni first came up with the idea of creating a bicycle out of recycled cardboard, his engineer friends told him that it would be impossible. But he continued to work on the personal project in his free time. “My first prototypes looked like delivery boxes on wheels,” he has said. “They were hefty and it didn’t take much imagination to see that they were made of cardboard.” Today, it’s almost impossible to tell that his two-wheelers — which are waterproof and can hold up to 485 pounds — are built entirely from the recycled material using a process that he likens to folding origami. Gafni is currently working with investors to have his bikes ready for worldwide distribution as early as next year; while they cost about $9 a piece to produce, you can expect the finished version to retail for somewhere between $60 and $90. Click through to watch a short documentary about the project, and let us know in the comments if you’d like to take one for a spin!
Izhar cardboard bike project from Giora Kariv on Vimeo.
[via GOOD]