As of my writing this, many of you will have already heard of Freecycle. Although this may sound like some sort of hands-free bicycle trick, actually, Freecycle is a network of environmentally minded folks who would like to make their trash your treasure! Think back on all the times that you have passed by a desk, or a chair, maybe it was an old stove... sitting at the edge of the road accompanied by a makeshift cardboard sign announcing "free."
Ideally, this should be an excellent way to ensure that those less than desirable items of yours will remain useful to someone, rather than ending up in a landfill somewhere. But often times we run into a bit of a logistical problem when using this method. Essentially, we need to hope that the right person stumbles crossed our neck of the woods, and actually sees the item. Freecycle has revolutionized this exchange, and made it much easier for people to connect globally. Excerpted from their website:
The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,205 groups with 4,214,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.This is a reciprocating process. You will theoretically be able to get rid of some of your more peculiar junk, and have the satisfaction of knowing that it went to good use, and not just some random refuse pile upstate. We need to stop dumping everything into a hole in the ground the minute we find it's luster lacking. So, if you have taken the time to read this, I hope that you will also please consider exploring the Freecycle website.
2 comments:
Don't completely understand, Dave. They want their trash to go to us, yes? Why? Why not the good things in their houses as well?
The idea is that we are putting far too many billions of metric tons of waste into landfills as is, and this is a way to keep certain items in circulation, and out of the ground, just that much longer. In a sense, this project turns used items, unwanted yard sale fodder into a renewable resource for those who would make use of an old crockpot or ten-speed.
I believe that there is a growing cross section of our culture that is beginning to understand the value of used goods. For every person out there that replaces their vehicle with a new one every three years, there are people who refuse to buy a new vehicle ever. My wife and I are looking to move within the next several years. We could build a new house, but decided we should buy a pre-existing instead. Reusing is a major component of recycling.
James, I think I can see what you're getting at, and you make a good point. The way Freecycle works, we could choose to give someone anything that we wanted to give them. Very cool!
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