Thousands of people are giving away pricey items to folks they don’t know through giveaway websites such as Freecycle.org.

Whether it’s bedside cabinets, books or concert tickets, giveaway community websites offer first-class, second-hand goods for free. Every hour, people post hundreds of freebies on these sites. All you do is email a request, then pop round to pick it up.

WHAT IS FREECYCLE?

Freecycle isn’t a website in its own right.

It is run via Yahoo group emails, which is highly localised. This means you become a part of your area’s own Freecycle club. Each community is run by locally-based volunteers.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the things we own and what they mean. From Buy Nothing Day to Freecycle to The Story of Stuff, rethinking our relationship to money and material possessions is a central theme within the sustainability debate. Many greens believe we’ve become too wrapped up in our love of stuff. But I wonder if we’ve got it the wrong way around. Maybe we don’t love our stuff enough.
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A quick search on Freecycle revealed that there were numerous people more than happy to have spare apples taken off their hands: “Just so long as they were rewarded with the cider we made from them!” laughs Pete. But it soon became apparent that the trees on London’s highways and parks were also choc-full of delights just waiting to be turned into cider. “We all cycle and we kept seeing trees we thought would be good to raid. Once we’d seen one, we’d make a note and come back to it with all of our paraphernalia.”

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What do you do when times are tight but you still need to replace the wooden legs on your couch? How are you supposed to keep the glaring sunlight out of your eyes so that you can balance the chequebook at your desk? Where can you find bedsheets, cookie jars, and bicycles for free, all while feeling like you’re contributing to a worthy social cause?

There is a new trend in environmental activism that doesn’t cost a thing but helps keep otherwise useful household goods out of landfills. The first Freecycle group started in 2003 when Deron Beal sent an email to a few dozen friends, colleagues and local non-profit agencies near him in Tucson, Arizona. Beal worked for a group that provided recycling services and he noticed perfectly good stuff being thrown away, so he decided to do something about it.

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Myth: “Biodegradable” products that return to their natural state save landfill space.

Reality: Modern landfills are designed to keep out sunlight, air and moisture to prevent air and water pollution, thus inhibiting degradation. The FTC’s definition of a biodegradable product is one that will completely decompose within a reasonably short period of time under customary methods of disposal. Because most landfilled garbage won’t pass that test, you’re better off reducing your contribution to solid waste (according to the EPA, the average American generates almostfive pounds of garbage a day). At the store, look for a claim of “post-consumer recycled” content, then recycle what you can. Also use sites such as Freecycle.org instead of hauling reusable stuff to the dump.

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Yard sales are great for bargains, but they also are great for the fact that we are keeping usable things out of our landfills. Each of us produces 1.2 tons of garbage per year, but that figure doesn’t include the usable goods—such as old furniture, clothes and books—that also wind up in the waste stream.

Tighter belts mean people are more reluctant to throw usable goods away and more likely to fix something broken or exchange it with a friend. More and more people are engaging in the time-honored tradition of “freecycling.” This means giving usable goods to someone else for free instead of wasting it.

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Spokesman Owain Griffiths said: “Rather than sending the clothing to landfill, there are other options for getting rid of school uniforms without impacting on the environment.

“You could donate good-quality clothes to a charity shop, sell them on or register them on Freecycle.co.uk, which is an online community where members give away their unwanted items to others.”

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After Debbie, of Wood Road, Heybridge, put an advert on the website, Freecycle, explaining what had happened and appealing for anyone who had a DS for sale to get in touch, she received an e-mail from a man who told her to go to Maldon police station where there was a gift waiting for her son.

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You can get lots of free goodies for nothing, as well as give away unwanted items instead of filling up the local dump.

One catch though — you have to sign up through Yahoo. Mr. T’s word of advice: Set up a separate e-mail specifically freebie hunting, as you’ll otherwise clog up your inbox.

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