Introducing: A $20 Bike Made of Cardboard

It's a pretty nifty idea assuming it all comes together: An Israeli inventor has made a bicycle almost entirely out of cardboard and hopes to have it in mass production in months, reports Reuters. Izhar Gafni swears his $20 bike is uber-durable, thanks to a treatment of organic materials that makes it both waterproof and fireproof. It has no metal parts, and its tires are made of recycled rubber from car tires. It can accommodate a simple motor, too. (You can see a video here.)

"I was always fascinated by applying unconventional technologies to materials ... but this was the culmination of a few things that came together," says Gafni, who thinks the bike could have a huge impact on third-world countries. "I worked for four years to cancel out the corrugated cardboard's weak structural points." The bike is expected to go on sale in Israel within a year, and production will expand after that. The invention is winning favorable mentions in Time, the Street, and DesignTaxi. (More cardboard stories.)