Museum Freecycle was launched in June following an open letter by Urban Salon creative director Alex Mowat published by Design Week, which called for an end to waste from temporary exhibitions.

Mowat’s proposal was for a “museum Freecycle website” connecting institutions so that at the end of an exhibition materials could be given away to other museums which might reuse them.

Freecycle executive director Deron Beal got in contact with Urban Salon via Design Week and the project got underway.

There are now 170 members across the UK including smaller museums such as the Bagpipe Museum and Bloxham Village Museum.

Read more

The raised beds in our main growing site have been constructed from old scaffold boards while our container and planter themed gardens have been made from fruit bins, apple crates and half whisky barrels. The rest of our pots and planters have been acquired from the freecycle website – a brilliant way to offload or acquire all sorts of items for no money, and prevent them from going to landfill. We’ve even obtained quite a few loads of topsoil from freecycle too!

Read more

How to dispose of a laptop or PC: Freecycle it

If you’re feeling generous, or you don’t think your old laptop or PC is worth much, you can give away a working computer to someone who would benefit from it. You might know someone, but if not, sign up to your local Freecycle group.

Read more

• Pool and Beach Toys

Some pool toys such as buckets and spades are made out of rigid plastics that are not accepted at the recycling centres or in your kerbside recycling collection. If you’re no longer using them, give them away on Freecycle or ask local playgroups if they can make use of them. Plastic paddling pools are non-recyclable but they could be reused to cover bikes with later in the year.

Read more

Freecycle. Not strictly a way of making money, but certainly a good way of saving it, the Freecycle community exists online and offers things to the group for free. Sign up to your local community group and post your unwanted items for collection — while seeing what’s up for grabs!

Read more