95. Sign up to freecycle.org. Not only will you be able to find good homes for all the stuff you don’t need anymore, but you can ’shop’ for nothing by putting out a call to other freecyclers for what you need.
Althea is giving away five bantam roosters but would like some lemons to make jam. Patricia is off-loading an electric organ and will send photos so you don’t make a “bad buy”, even though it’s free. And Karen is getting rid of an old washing machine that doesn’t work but would be “great for spare parts”.
Welcome to Freecycle, which is being hailed as the new “eBay with a conscience”.
Based on the premise that one person’s trash is another’s treasure, it is the brainchild of Deron Beal, a 38-year-old charity worker.
“You could say I was a professional junk collector,” Mr Beal explains. “I was working for a recycling organisation and I’d hang around dumpsters saving usable items and delivering them to non-profits who could use them. But it got to the point where I was spending all my time driving around to charities and no time saving things from the dumpster. One thing led to another and that’s how Freecycle started. I thought if I gave it a nifty name, it might just take off.”
In the true spirit of Hard Rock’s mantra “Take Time To Be Kind” and in conjunction with “Earth Day”, Hard Rock Hotel Bali held a charity program named “Freecycle Project”, designed to collect and donate used clothes, sheets, books and toys. “It’s all about reuse to reduce waste, save precious resources and ease the burden on our landfills. Freecycle can educate people about how critical recycling and reducing waste are to make the world a better place”, said Ms. Aulianty Fellina Rizal, Marketing and Communications Manager of Hard Rock Hotel Bali. The program ran during the month of April, collecting 14 boxes of used clothes, sheets, books and toys which were donated to Graha Zakat DSM Bali on 19th May 2009, to help the needy children of Bali.
Both the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul say they will accept used televisions which are working and meet certain criteria, and a number of websites such as freecycle.org and ozrecycle.com have also sprung up in recent years for passing unwanted household items to others who desire them.
The global online network Freecycle has members who give away things they no longer need. More than 100,000 Australians have already joined local freecycle groups. www.freecycle.org/groups/australia.
THE word is spreading about an online group that helps you get rid of what you don’t want and give it to someone who does, stopping it from ending up in landfill.
Penrith Freecycle is part of the Freecycle Network, which began in the United States.
It is a nonprofit group but Freecycle and its logo are trademarks of the network overseas.
- Freecycle, a website that allows people to post and swap unwanted items, says it has 10,336 active members in its Melbourne group. Items must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. Visit www.freecycle.org
Another freeconomist, 46-year-old Tim Ramacciotti, uses the global online network called Freecycle to give away things he can no longer use.
Putting into practical use the idea “one person’s trash is another’s treasure”, the Freecycle network pulls in more than 2000 new members a day worldwide. From old pots and pans to a bulky deep-fat fryer, Ramacciotti offers items on the East Sydney online notice board instead of throwing them to landfill. In exchange, he’s picked up an alarm clock, bedside tables and a couple of lamps.
Melbourne households have embraced recycling but not so much is known about how we tackle the arguably more important area of reuse. What do we do with items we no longer need or cannot store? Scouring hard-rubbish bins has become a suburban ritual in those areas that still have regular collections; Lane says many respondents did not realise that if their contribution was not taken by neighbours it would end up in landfill. She believes there is a latent community willingness to dispose of items more responsibly but that many do not know how to do this.
The survey asked: how did you dispose of used household goods in the past two years? Ninety-five per cent reported reusing materials such as plastic bags in the home; 82% used hard-rubbish collections; 74% gave items to friends and relatives; 73% gave to op shops; 57% used charity bins; 46% used door-knock appeals. The remainder took items to the tip, hired skips or used the internet site Freecycle which encourages people to give goods away as a means of helping others and building community (the Melbourne Freecycle website is the second most active outside North America where the concept began; only the London site is bigger).
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