Through rain, sleet or snow, Jim Gregory peddles on.

He’s the man you see pulling that long trailer of blue tote bins on his bicycle up and down Osborn Drive at all hours of the day.

While the rest of us ride for fun or for 15 minutes getting to campus and back, bicycling for Gregory and the seven people who ride for him means business.

Fresh Air Delivery began in 1991 when Gregory saw too many people driving their cars and wondered what he could do to reduce car traffic.

“We began by delivering groceries because we thought that was something people almost always use their cars for,” Gregory said.

He began collecting recyclables in June 1993, and he now delivers The Tunes and The Drummer newspapers and airline tickets for Travel and Transport Inc.

He said he knows of only two other delivery services like his in the United States — one in Eugene, Ore., and the other in Berkeley, Calf. He said both focus more on delivering packages than recyclables.

Fresh Air Delivery has collected 121,735 pounds of recyclables and saved about 562 gallons of gas that the average person would have had to expend to get the items to the Ames Area Recycling Center on East Lincoln Way, Gregory said.

His business has grown so much that seven additional people help with the pick-ups and deliveries.

Although Gregory makes little profit when he pays the other riders, he believes that “the more people pulling, the better it is for the company.”

Other riders share Gregory’s attitude about conserving resources.

“Pulling [a] trailer with. . . nine bins all full of stuff is super fun, but kind of tiring sometimes. Especially when you take a corner too fast, and they fall over and you have to pick everything back up,” said Bryan Hendricks, Fresh Air’s newest employee.

But Gregory said in the four years since he began his business he’s never missed a day.