Say what? What is Freecycle? Freecycle is a non-profit organization and a movement of people to keep good stuff out of the landfill. Here's how it works. Lets say you have a coffeemaker sitting under your cabinet in the kitchen. Nothing wrong with it, but you use the Super Espresso/Latte/Green Tea/Soda machine your Aunt Tilly gave you for Flag Day last year. She's so thoughtful that way. Anyway, there it sits, the old coffeemaker, looking sad and dusty. You don't want to just throw it out, there's nothing wrong with it. So what do you do? Give it to your third cousin as a wedding present? You could, if you never want to be invited to a family gathering again (now there's a thought). List it on Craigslist? Right and it will be buried at the bottom of the page in about 2 seconds. You could take it to the dump, if you have one where you live, put it on the freebie table, if they have one, and hope somebody picks it up before it rains and shorts out the whole thing and the dump people throw it in the dumpster anyway. Well that's where Freecycle comes in. You can post it in the group, and guaranteed (well not really, but almost) someone will want it, come to your house or will meet you somewhere convenient and take it off your hands. No muss, no fuss! It's gone to a new home where it will be loved and used for a long time.
The process also works in reverse. Maybe you would like to have a Super Espresso/Latte/Green Tea/Soda machine. You know, the one that Uncle Bob said he was going to get you but instead got you one of those blankets with arm holes that makes you look like a monk, not to mention the free book light that he kept for himself. You can post your desire in the group and maybe someone has one that they don't want or use or even know how to load the soda into and just wants it out of the house (they really don't like their Aunt Tilly). You arrange to pick it up and it's yours. The best thing is you do not need to explain why you want something, most groups don't allow 'back stories' or 'sob stories' anyway.
So how does one go about getting in on this? Actually it pretty easy.
First, go to www.freecycle.org
In the box below where it says Find A Group Near You, enter where you live, say Chicago, IL
Hit Go and you will be presented with a list of groups in your area. Pick the one closest to you, and depending on where you live there might be a lot of choices.
You will then be directed to the group home page where you can sign up and begin to participate in keeping stuff out of the landfills. Easy as that.
There are a few constraints, every thing posted must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. There is no borrowing or trading allowed, and absolutely no buying or selling, no mention of money at all.
I have been running a group in New Hampshire for 4 years now. We have over 1,000 members with over 6,600 posts so far. I have seen offers from baby clothes to cars to mobile homes, wants from old lumber to double strollers to Super Espresso/Latte/Green Tea/Soda machines (just kidding). My point is, it is an easy way to "gift" someone with something that you no longer need or want and know that it will continue to be useful and not just tossed in the trash pile. It's also a good way of letting people know that you would like to have something that is maybe just taking up space in their home and that you have a use for it.
Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.
'Til next time.
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Yes, I have heard of it. I think I'll join!
ReplyDeleteI think Freecycle is a great concept in need of a useful tool for searching, filtering, and automatically managing the wanted/offer/taken/received posts. Someone should write a tool that automatically notifies the "wanted" poster when someone posts a similar "offer" and vice versa. The tool should also eliminate fulfilled posts. So, if someone posts a "received" or "taken" message, it and the corresponding "wanted" or "offer" post are automatically hidden/archived after a certain (short) amount of time. This cou7ld be either implemented as a server feature or as an email client plugin for users receiving each post as an email. You could also implement a search feature that could possibly have advanced features like filtering results to show only a certain class of posts, or only searching the subject, body, or author. Finally, the tool could have a built in "post wizard" this would assure any posts created with the tool would be in the proper format with the important words correctly spelled and placed. I think a tool like this would greatly improve many people's Freecycle experience and make the organization much more appealing and useful.
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