The Times: Go freecycling: dump your junk and feel good
By David Rowan
First to go was my ten-year-old Apple Mac, no longer working and clogging up the study. Then it was the electric mini-oven’s turn to find an appreciative new home, liberating both space and social conscience. By the time I had given away my unloved mountain-bike mudguard I was hooked on “freecycling”. Sure, I could have earned a bit of cash auctioning off my trinkets on eBay — but welcoming strangers into your home to give away your unwanted clutter just seems so much more satisfying.
The Freecycle Network (www.freecycle.org) is less than three years old but two million members around the world use it to recycle perfectly good items that would otherwise be thrown away. Based around 3,300 local groups from Aberdeen to Zurich, it uses Yahoo e-mail lists to keep members informed about items available for collection, as well as letting them specify things they are looking for. If you see a working Dyson listed, or can offer a new mum some old baby clothes, you simply e-mail the person who posted the note. The only rule is that no money must change hands — hence the “free” in freecycling.
According to its slogan, the network is “changing the world one gift at a time”. By its own estimates it keeps 50 tonnes of waste out of landfills every day. But the wider benefit is the gratification that accrues from giving another member some unexpected pleasure.
When Emma, from Palmers Green, popped round to pick up my Russell Hobbs mini-oven (hardly used, not needed since the builders left), she enthused about it being a godsend during her own imminent kitchen refit. Not only would Emma now be able to cook “real” food, but she also promised to freecycle the oven to another deserving kitchen refurbisher once her own builders had departed. I received a dozen almost instant requests for the oven, seven or eight for the mudguard (thanks for collecting, Jennifer, and sorry it took a couple of days for us to coincide).
That is hardly surprising given that the London branch (www.groups.yahoo.com/group/freecyclelondon) now has 21,000 members and is growing at a rate of 500 a week. Ashley Hooper, the software engineer who founded the branch two years ago, calls himself “a bit of a greenie” and explains that freecycling avoids the guilt that he feels taking his personal “junk” down to the dump. But that is to underestimate the quality of some of the items on offer. Over the past 18 months as a member I have encountered digital cameras, fully working bicycles and garden trees, all available without charge. On one recent afternoon the offerings included Nicky Clarke electric hair straighteners, a leather three-piece suite and a barely used 20GB iPod. Gavin, the freecycler making the offer, explained intriguingly that he had “recently had a bad experience with which it was connected ”. Interested? I bet. Inundated with requests, Gavin settled on “someone who is disabled and isn’t able to leave the house”.
That’s part of the attraction — the power to play Santa, deciding which e-mail deserves the prize. Yet there is also the social aspect — I haven’t met a freecycler I didn’t take to — as well as the community sense of humour. Last month amid the requests for Super Nintendo and discontinued Herbal Essences Kiwi, Kumquat and Fig shampoo (its replacement, the supplicant explained, being “totally useless for my hair”), there was a spirited discussion about one posting headed: “Wanted: a sex partner.” At first, the complaints flooded in, denouncing the advert as “abhorrent” and “unacceptable”.
But then Rayner in Leytonstone reminded members that it did appear to honour the spirit of freecycling. “Doesn’t everyone have an old forgotten sex partner gathering dust?” Rayner wrote. “Shouldn’t we be stopping them going to landfill?”
(The Times, February 18 2006)
First to go was my ten-year-old Apple Mac, no longer working and clogging up the study. Then it was the electric mini-oven’s turn to find an appreciative new home, liberating both space and social conscience. By the time I had given away my unloved mountain-bike mudguard I was hooked on “freecycling”. Sure, I could have earned a bit of cash auctioning off my trinkets on eBay — but welcoming strangers into your home to give away your unwanted clutter just seems so much more satisfying.
The Freecycle Network (www.freecycle.org) is less than three years old but two million members around the world use it to recycle perfectly good items that would otherwise be thrown away. Based around 3,300 local groups from Aberdeen to Zurich, it uses Yahoo e-mail lists to keep members informed about items available for collection, as well as letting them specify things they are looking for. If you see a working Dyson listed, or can offer a new mum some old baby clothes, you simply e-mail the person who posted the note. The only rule is that no money must change hands — hence the “free” in freecycling.
According to its slogan, the network is “changing the world one gift at a time”. By its own estimates it keeps 50 tonnes of waste out of landfills every day. But the wider benefit is the gratification that accrues from giving another member some unexpected pleasure.
When Emma, from Palmers Green, popped round to pick up my Russell Hobbs mini-oven (hardly used, not needed since the builders left), she enthused about it being a godsend during her own imminent kitchen refit. Not only would Emma now be able to cook “real” food, but she also promised to freecycle the oven to another deserving kitchen refurbisher once her own builders had departed. I received a dozen almost instant requests for the oven, seven or eight for the mudguard (thanks for collecting, Jennifer, and sorry it took a couple of days for us to coincide).
That is hardly surprising given that the London branch (www.groups.yahoo.com/group/freecyclelondon) now has 21,000 members and is growing at a rate of 500 a week. Ashley Hooper, the software engineer who founded the branch two years ago, calls himself “a bit of a greenie” and explains that freecycling avoids the guilt that he feels taking his personal “junk” down to the dump. But that is to underestimate the quality of some of the items on offer. Over the past 18 months as a member I have encountered digital cameras, fully working bicycles and garden trees, all available without charge. On one recent afternoon the offerings included Nicky Clarke electric hair straighteners, a leather three-piece suite and a barely used 20GB iPod. Gavin, the freecycler making the offer, explained intriguingly that he had “recently had a bad experience with which it was connected ”. Interested? I bet. Inundated with requests, Gavin settled on “someone who is disabled and isn’t able to leave the house”.
That’s part of the attraction — the power to play Santa, deciding which e-mail deserves the prize. Yet there is also the social aspect — I haven’t met a freecycler I didn’t take to — as well as the community sense of humour. Last month amid the requests for Super Nintendo and discontinued Herbal Essences Kiwi, Kumquat and Fig shampoo (its replacement, the supplicant explained, being “totally useless for my hair”), there was a spirited discussion about one posting headed: “Wanted: a sex partner.” At first, the complaints flooded in, denouncing the advert as “abhorrent” and “unacceptable”.
But then Rayner in Leytonstone reminded members that it did appear to honour the spirit of freecycling. “Doesn’t everyone have an old forgotten sex partner gathering dust?” Rayner wrote. “Shouldn’t we be stopping them going to landfill?”
(The Times, February 18 2006)
posted by David Rowan at Saturday, February 18, 2006
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