(Yicai Global) June 25 -- Abandoned shared bicycles have become a major headache for Chinese cities due to over-delivery and corporate closures. Guangzhou has more than 300,000 of these discarded two-wheelers, city statistics show, and cleaning them up and recycling them has become a thorny problem.

Guangzhou Broadcasting Network recently held a large-scale television forum focusing on the city's management of shared bicycles, which first entered town in September 2016, statistics show. The number of these bikes topped 800,000 by last year's end, while the city's reasonable capacity is just between 390,000 and 450,000, Guangzhou Daily reported yesterday.

The municipal traffic management committee banned any new deliveries last year. Guangzhou announced that it would focus on cleaning up abandoned bikes on April 18, with more than 9,000 carted off on that day alone.

Over 300,000 discarded shared bicycles still litter city streets, however, while their designated parking spaces can accommodate about 85,000, said Tan Zhaoxiong with Guangzhou's Urban Management Committee, adding that the remainder still clog public road resources.

A representative from Mobike Technology, the biggest player in Guangzhou's bicycle-sharing market, noted that the company plans to replace some defunct bikes with new ones and has leased over a dozen warehouses to house the derelict bikes taken off the streets.

Editor: Ben Armour