On May 1, 2003, Deron Beal, an American engineer, sent an e-mail to 40 friends and a handful of non-profits in Tucson, Arizona. The e-mail led to the formation of the Freecycle Network, which provided recycling services to businesses in Tucson.
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The American way of life seems to revolve around “stuff;” what you have and how much you have of it. But when it’s time to get rid of some of this “stuff” to replace it with new or to just free up some space in your home, it can be a challenge.
What if no one you know wants to take the stuff, stores like Goodwill are full, it’s not garage sale season, and you don’t want to simply throw it in a landfill? Then Freecycle.org may be a great solution.
The Freecycle Network is not just a site, it’s a community of people giving and receiving good use items for free. The site has over 5,000 groups made up of over 8 million users. A “group” is a community that someone can join. The group’s geography is a person’s city or county. Besides the U.S., there are 122 other countries on The Freecycle Network.
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I got home this morning and posted an ad for cans to recycle on freecycle. One person will save them for me. I know I wont get much but that’s at least a start towards something I guess.
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Freecycle.org: Though a bare-bones site, Freecycle is efficient, and a perfect way to get rid of unwanted stuff—or to score, for free, something that your neighbor is dying to ditch.
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“We found that being active in online gift-giving communities like Freecycle generates strong feelings of solidarity and identification, which in turn drive people to give more gifts in the system,” said Robb Willer, assistant professor of sociology and psychology at UC Berkeley. “This dynamic may help explain why the membership of sites like Freecycle and Couchsurfing has taken off in recent years.”
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5. Find Free Toys. Check out the website Freecycle for free toys. Craigslist also has a free section where you’re bound to find freebies for your kids. In either case, you will have to pick up the toy from the person donating it, so it’s best to not search too far out of your area.
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Long-time gifters know that Craiglist’s “Free” board and the nearest chapter of Freecycle are fast and easy ways to get rid of your stuff locally, and keeping items in the community tightens your neighborhood network. Posting on Craigslist is simple, it allows for listing lots of items in one post and will usually yield quick and numerous responses. Freecycle requires a moderator to sign you up through an email account, and then you can post “offers” for your items on the local forums. For a more updated experience, try GiftFlow, which adds a social network element to the gifting process. Unlike the other sites, you create a user profile, which means you can post what you have and what you want while acquiring a user history; this helps when you are meeting a stranger for the handoff.
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Frugal … for Now
The recession gave rise to a trend of thriftiness and reuse, according to Lauren Weber, author of In Cheap We Trust — but trends do run in cycles.
“Suddenly it was cool to be cheap, to get all your material needs met by Freecycle, to make your own laundry detergent and downsize from two cars to one,” Weber said. “But if history tells us anything, it’s that these frugal interludes tend to be short lived. They’re driven by temporary political or economic conditions and they never seem to last, much to the sorrow of dyed-in-the-wool cheap adherents.”
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How Are You Teaching Your Kid About Money?
Willow says her mom is a big influence on her. What ways are you teaching your kids about money? Do you have regular conversations with them about it?
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I also go to auctions and Goodwill to buy things and resell to people online. The website Freecycle [which allows people to advertise and donate items they no longer need to other people] is also a really good source to get free stuff to resell—there’s just a whole bunch of ways that people can make money.
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As the coordinator of an office move, I certainly discovered some great ways to lessen our impact on the environment by reusing, freecycling and donating some of the things we could no longer use.
Planet Ark recently consolidated our two offices into one. The city team moved from a small office on Level 2 of our Circular Quay building and created a new home for staff from our Blue Mountains office to join us. It took a bit of planning, but being a green organisation, we wanted to ensure we took the time for the 3Rs… reduce, reuse, and recycle!
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