One Atlanta resident has taken it upon himself to clean the streets of nails, screws and other metal bits that have been left to accumulate in large amounts.
Known as the “Atlanta Magnet Man,” Alex Benigno bikes around Atlanta with a hitched trailer that uses magnets to attract metal debris that poses a risk to people’s car tires. The idea is completely his own, and he does it for free.
“I can’t really find anybody that says what I’m doing is a terrible thing unless, you know, they own a tire shop,” he said.
Benigno, a native Atlantan, first identified the problem early in the COVID-19 pandemic when roads were empty.
During work commutes, his car and motorcycle tires were damaged by nails. After he realized how many more drivers would be affected when traffic conditions returned to normal, he worked to find a solution.
“I like to randomly do things to help when nobody’s looking,” Benigno said. “I’ll do just random stuff to help improve things that will benefit random people that I’ve never met before … it’s just so that I can do a little thing to fix something so somebody doesn’t suffer down the road.”
In June 2023, Benigno first equipped his bike trailer with magnets. After several months of trial and error, he found the perfect configuration for the trailer and has been riding consistently since last December.
Nearly every day, Benigno bikes about 10 miles and picks up around six pounds of debris — about the max the magnets can carry. Over the course of eight weeks, he collected over 410 pounds of metal, recently donating it to a local scrap artist.
Benigno started documenting his journeys on Instagram and has amassed over 22,000 followers since January. His most popular video, with nearly 2 million views on Instagram, shows footage of the magnets as he bikes along I-285 and S. Atlanta Road.
So far, he said the roads he’s biked with the most debris are…
Read the full article here
