Eslam with the cargo bike which is now broken

WHEN you forget your old mobile phone in a drawer or supermarkets dump their leftovers at the end of a day, “you’re throwing away someone else’s gold”.

This is the view of nutritionist-turned-local climate change activist Eslam Mohamed Mohamed Ahmed.

A welcome face at community gardens and food banks in Islington, Eslam cycles around the borough collecting and delivering items that would otherwise be wasted to the local organisations that need them.

“To one person I’m bringing food to the food bank, to someone else I’m turning the compost into a garden. My job is about proving the concept of a circular economy in the neighbourhood,” he explained, meaning the lifetime of products is extended by reusing, repairing, upcycling or otherwise making use of things that tend to just get thrown away.

But Eslam’s community passion project – called Sustainable Nutrition Academy – has been put on hold after his cargo bike was written off in a traffic accident last month.

Now, he is crowdfunding to repair the broken bike – which was on loan from St Mary’s Church, Hornsey Rise – and buy a new one so he can continue with his deliveries.

“I’m really, really sad,” he said. “Without the bike I’m not capable of doing what I’m doing. I have to either rent a bike, which is very expensive, or do it with wheelbarrows.”

Eslam works with up to 30 organisations in Islington and beyond, including Friends of Wray Crescent, Sunnyside Community Gardens and Whittington Park Community Association.

“I don’t call it waste, I call it second-hand raw materials, just to avoid the negative connotations that come with the term.

“Say I collect leftover cauliflower leaves from a food bank that fed 300 people – if you don’t know what to do with it, it’s waste, but if you do you can make the best kimchi ever.

“Those resources are on the planet but no one is using them. It’s a pity. You can create jobs, housing, you can fight poverty, you can really do so much with the resources if you reconsider them as things that communities need.

“The goal is to create a model that can be replicated anywhere.

“In the long term, we want a fleet of bikes – we have a waiting list of businesses wanting to help us do the collections.”

For details of Eslam’s fundraiser go to: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/raising-funds-for-a-replacement-cargo-bike