Freecycle, an online network where people can share and collect unwanted possessions for free, is becoming of the biggest environmental web communities.
Set up 10 years ago by a group of friends, the US-based non-profit organisation has grown to a global network of local groups with nine million members.
The Freecycle concept is being seen as a way to reduce landfill waste while saving money.
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I’ve no idea why it takes many sofa suppliers six weeks to deliver a sofa, but it does and as a result I’ve got nothing to sit on in my new gaff except an expanse of scruffy laminate. The idea of buying a sofa to sit on while I wait for a sofa to arrive seems needlessly extravagant, so I’ve turned to the global network dedicated to giving away stuff and getting stuff for free.
Next week marks Freecycle’s 10th anniversary, a glorious decade of matchmaking compulsive off-loaders with the vaguely needy; it even survived a fractious British schism in 2009, when disaffected Freecyclers broke away to form an almost-identical network, Freegle. Between them, Freegle and Freecycle now boast over 900 local groups in the UK with four million members. That’s a hell of a lot of unwanted stuff that magically transforms into wanted stuff.
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Vince Cable, The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, visited Wedmore at the weekend with Burnham-On-Sea’s MP Tessa Munt.
Mr Cable picked up a few freebies at a Freecycle event in Wedmore alongside his parliamentary private secretary.
At the Freecycle event, organised by the village green group, he took away a set of bathroom scales for his London home.
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Online communities
The web has enabled us to make giving away our unwanted things easier. Most already know of Freecycle where you can post ads for unwanted items you want to give away and search for things going for free in your local area.
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FREECYCLE: Thrifty shoppers can swap unwanted clothes and other items at a Freecycle Live event in Bicester Methodist Church next Saturday, January 26.
Running from 10am to 2pm at the church on the corner of Sheep Street and Bell Lane, the event is being hosted by Grassroots Bicester and Cherwell District Council.
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Clothes: a child’s only requirement is to be warm and dry. We would use only swaps from friends or bundles from Freecycle, the website that matches people who have things they don’t want with people who can use them. Toys: ditto. Food: out with the kiddy rice cakes, little cheeses and special squashes. He would just eat his share of the three meals a day that we cook for ourselves. Cloth nappies (given away via “swap or sell” pages on Facebook); kitchen haircuts; activities concocted at home instead of at soft-play centres. We could go a whole year without engaging in any kiddy consumerism, barring essential items such as medicines. Johnny wouldn’t even notice.
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WHEN American man Deron Beal found that local thrift shops would not take his unwanted bed, little did he realise that his efforts to pass it on to someone else would result in a recycling scheme sweeping the world.
In a bid to protect the planet and stop the perfectly usable bed from ending up at a landfill site, Deron started a network of friends online to find a good home for it.
Before long not-for-profit organisation Freecycle was born – an internet network where people advertise and pass on their unwanted items. The one rule you have to obey is that everything must be given and received for free.
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The three offers above were advertised recently in a London Freecycle Group; the letters: SE8, SE23 and SE26 are the postcodes of the people offering said goods. If you haven’t heard of Freecycle, check the main website and follow the links to one near you.
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See clip here.
I’ve already done a post about Freecycle a few month back, but I thought I would remind all my blogging buddies about this fantastic website and community, where you can give away items for free, and find items for free.
It is so satisfying to give things away, rather than knowing they will go to landfill site or an incinerator. And don’t think that the item you are giving away should be in perfect condition, I’ve given away items which were broken, and there is always somebody out there who can take it and fix it!
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