Freegans, in principle, recycle as much as possible. It is in their ethic to compost and repair broken things and use sustainable transport where possible. Freecycle.org is a site where you can find fellow Freegans advertising unwanted goods in your town. This can range from TVs to beds to children’s clothes. However, everything must be offered for free. Services such as these can help to reduce landfill and the energy wasted in the construction of new items. Cardiff has a particularly active and successful group.

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But Freecycle has given me riches far beyond the material. I’ve met a saintly foster mom (and actually cried when she was told she couldn’t adopt one of the children), and several delightful junkster shut-ins who, miraculously, wanted chit-chat as much as I did. My husband secretly arranged to pick up a decade’s worth of old New Yorkers for me, surely the most romantic thing he has done since cutting little heart-shaped pork chops for me for Valentine’s Day circa 2000 (apologies to the vegans among you Freegans).

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- One person’s junk … Yahoo! has coordinated a big push with Freecycle in order to encourage the reuse of all sorts of existing resources. (Incidentally, I’ve written about Freecycle before. I love their model, which plays into the garage sale mentality of one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.)

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Recently I had a bed I wanted to get rid of - one that was, I felt, too good to spend the next 1,000 years rotting in landfill. So I decided to have a go at Freecycling it instead, which to my surprise threw up some interesting questions about online identity.

If you’ve not come across it before, Freecycle is a group that enables you to donate unwanted goods to the local community. There also seems to be no limit to weird and wacky items offered on Freecycle - who would have thought old video tapes or 5kg of rice could find a new home?

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Bill Berlow Blogs…

Got stuff you want to get rid of that someone else could put to good use? Want something that someone else might not need anymore?

Have I got a deal for you.

If you have a computer and a little patience, the 3,300-member TallyFreecycle group is waiting for you to join its Yahoo-based “gifting” network.

TallyFreecycle is part of a growing international movement that began in Arizona five years ago. The Freecycle Network now claims more than 4 million members worldwide who are part of 3,500 community organizations.

Click Here to Read More on Tally’s own Freecycle Group

A few weeks ago, someone posted a used gas oven on Freecycle and we pounced on it. Turns out they were remodeling their kitchen, updating their appliances and had their old oven to give away. Scott picked it up and, with some conversions from electricity to gas, we had a beautiful new (to us) oven. I’ve already noticed a savings in our utility bills and it’s only been half a month!

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Think of it as becoming your own public-relations machine. You can sit down and make a list of all the good things you do for the environment that your friends don’t even know about. You recycled your Christmas tree and got a seedling to plant in return? Donated money to a worthy environmental cause? Use your community’s freecycle-type program? Shop at Goodwill? Feed scraps to the dog rather than throw them in the garbage? Reuse that plastic dish from the fruit salad for this week’s potato salad?

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These three basic materials will if recycled, will go a long way to helping the planet reduce its carbon emissions, I take it further than that because I recycle all my food waste to my chickens and goats or it is put onto the compost. All household items or electrical equipment is advertised on freecycle.

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Meanwhile, I’m looking into freecycle, where people give away unwanted goods to keep them out of landfill. Journo Julian Lee has just published a fascinating book about living an environmentally friendly lifestyle called How Good Are You? In it he tells of 27-year-old Kate Pears, a Melbourne “fashion activist” who runs clothing exchanges that have become popular social events. People bring clothes they “value but no longer use”, which are then rearranged on racks by volunteers. At the end of the evening, everyone picks out the clothes they like and takes them home, for free. It would be great to see similar exchanges for kids’ clothes.

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1) Stop buying water in plastic bottles. What comes out of your tap is excellent
quality and you’re already paying for it (like, it’s kind of free.) A major company recently admitted that they are bottling tap water and selling it at a premium! And don’t even get me started on protein waters, caffeine waters, and diet waters. You’d think it was Holy Water!

2) Buy less stuff. Just say no. Reject the Power of Cute.

3) Buy secondhand stuff. Check out consignment shops, Craig’s List and Freecycle.

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