E-step turns out to be drama for the climate, and yet nobody knows how many e-steps are driving around in Belgium
E-steps seem like a handy means of transport, or even a cool toy. But the downside of the electric step is also becoming clearer.
I still remember the first one I saw. There was a boy with his nose in the air and a girl with long blond hair, blowing in the wind. They whizzed passionately through the nocturnal streets of Brussels. It reminds me of that scene from Titanicfrom it arise young man himself king of the world feels on the bow of the disaster ship.
‘E-step’ is called the thing, but the French word evokes more nostalgia: ‘trottinette electric‘. Since I saw my first, countless numbers have emerged and want to reproduce like rabbits. In large cities they sometimes lie on obscure heaps. The e-step is hip, but also a source of annoyance and accidents. Sometimes she is raised. In Wolvertem and Mechelen, drivers were caught with e-steps that could go 100 kilometers per hour.
The smooth vehicle turned out not to be as environmentally friendly as it looks. According to American research, e-scooters live on average 28 days (!) before they are withdrawn from circulation. Research carried out closer to home by the French-speaking University of Brussels, ULB, has also yielded surprising results. Electric shared scooters from platforms such as Lime, Circ or Dott with their short lifespan – on average long term – are more polluting than the traditional means of transport they replace.
Stepjeskerkhof
E-steps produce the equivalent of 131 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, of which 79 percent during the polluting production phase on the other side of the world, often in China. With the means of transport that concerns the scooter (bicycle, public transport or even your own car) that is only 110 grams. And then we haven’t even mentioned the way in which the scooters, crisscrossed across the city, are collected at night with polluting diesel.
An intriguing question is where the scooters go at the end of their short lives. Is there a steppe graveyard, like the place where elephants go according to legend when they near their end? It’s not easy to find that. Part-step companies do not excel in transparency. They hide behind websites and do not respond to messages. “I do want to become goods”, says a words that I get briefly on the phone. Okay then. I only called for scooters, not for trafficking drugs.
The e-step is banned in the Netherlands, but with us it is still a bit the Far West, as is often the case. Ministers hear it thunder in Cologne when you ask how many scooters are actually driving around and what happens once they are written off. “I would say”, does not respond to the Brussels alderman for Mobility. “We have just decided that they are not allowed to drive on the footpath.”
Recycling
“Companies that bring electrical appliances onto the market and take them off the market in our country must report this,” replies Stijn Ombelets of Recupel diplomatically. “In general, things are going well. For new companies, which often work internationally and online, it takes longer before everyone is okay.”
Jan Verheyen of the OVAM is also in the dark about the existence of a scooter cemetery. He does point out to me the existence of the Groupe Comet in Wallonia, a company where ‘les trottinettesfoutues‘ be dismantled for recycling by unemployed people who are no longer entitled to benefits.
It concerns only a small minority of the scooters and they are not fond of showing them together. “That is a bit difficult for our clients”, says the person in charge kindly. “It’s good for their image if we don’t show so many broken steps together.”
The scooters from Brussels are not recycled at Comet. It remains a mystery where they go after their short existence. I do read that forty have been fished out of the canal.
I think back to that magical scene from Titanic, and how the romance there was overtaken by the brutal reality. ‘Un train peut-en cacher un autre‘, you read at French railway crossings. In front of la trottinette electric that’s no different.