Freecycle Big Island currently has nearly 1700 members. Seven months ago Beal told Sonia Martinez-founder of the 1700-member Freecycle Big Island (and HIJ food writer)-that her group had kept an estimated 300 tons of items out of the local landfills. Worldwide, Freecycle’s over 4,597,000 members give and receive about 300 tons of stuff each day.
Local members have given and received everything from TVs to pets, from egg cartons to dressmakers’ dummies, from boats to baby furniture, from a Jacuzzi to a truckload of dirt. Children’s clothing and books, and tools and building supplies, are popular items. One woman is building a house almost entirely out of recycled materials, many of them from other Freecycle members.

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