To cut energy use, save money and, while you’re at it, live a greener life, you can turn down the air conditioning, back off the accelerator, hop on a bike.

But when it comes to your personal energy tally, there’s another big but not as commonly considered source: The stuff you buy. Every product, from televisions to teapots, takes energy to get to the shopping bag — energy to mine raw materials, make the product and ship it.

Yet that use goes unreported in Oregon’s tracking of greenhouse gases and energy. And because Oregonians consume and throw away more stuff than ever, it amounts to a big blemish on the state’s famously green complexion.

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What is a reuse group?

It’s not a charity or a business: it’s an idea that perfectly good used stuff deserves a home other than the landfill. Instead of throwing out things like furniture, dishes, bikes, and electronics, people in a reuse group give these items away for free to other people in their community who can use them.

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[prMac.com] Seattle, WA - Black Pixel Luminance announces updates and two new plugins for Agent Craig, the internet search agent for OS X Leopard. Agent Craig, which already provides automated background searches of Craig’s List and Ebay, now adds Freecycle groups to the list of sites available to tech savvy bargain hunters. In addition, a new patent search plugin allows for extensive intellectual property research campaigns via the US Patent office website.

The first follows in the “bargain hunters” theme of the core application, and adds background searches targeting the sites in the Freecycle network (hosted by Yahoo! Groups).

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From April 20 through May 4, Yahoo! will help inspire people to join groups and recycle by placing eco-friendly prizes, such as a “Smart car”, eco-trips and green cleaning services, in randomly selected reuse groups. Yahoo! created a microsite to make it easy for users to find a reuse group in their community. The site will be promoted on Yahoo!’s homepage and throughout the network. Yahoo! will also host reuse events at many of its campuses worldwide for employees.

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Web sites

FREECYCLE.ORG

Have you outgrown your Chucks or your favorite Abercrombie T-shirt? Have a bunch of CDs you no longer listen to? Want to redecorate your room for cheap? Need 100 bottle caps for an art project? Offer good but no longer wanted stuff for free on Freecycle and get cool, gently-used stuff for free. Free membership required.

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David Deans reports on Climate change clicks…Yahoo has declared 2007 the year people stopped talking about climate change and started doing something about it. The internet search firm has ranked the top ten environmental searches.

Top search queries included Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, “carbon footprint” and “stop global warming”. Hybrid cars, solar energy and recycling programmes were also on the end of many a finger tip, as was the recycling site Freecycle.org.

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The Freecycle Network™ (Freecycle.org)
Need a ski rack, fertilizer spreader or ferret cage? You might be able to nab it for nothing at the online bulletin board Freecycle.org. The Freecycle Network™ is a community-based service made up of 4,182 groups with 4,130,000 members across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving and getting stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer. Membership is free, and you join a specific community group that includes your geographical location. People in your area will post items they want to give away.Click here to read the article in full

Though TreeHugger prefers Buy Nothing Day to the sheer madness of Black Friday, that doesn’t mean you have to live with less or even that you can’t acquire stuff; a great way to do this is with something like The Freecycle Network (it really works!). The big day has passed, but the Network rolls on, and remains a good way to both find and get rid of stuff without having to involve any money.

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Instead of spending $15, $20 or more on your child’s (or your own) Halloween costume, you can save both money and resources by creating your own. Dig through your closets or browse local resale shops and flea markets for vintage clothes that could make fun costumes. Or put out a request through your local Freecycle or craigslist for used costumes. You’re probably not the only person in your neighborhood to have a few costumes from Halloweens past buried in the back of your closet.
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3. Freecycle. If you’re unfamiliar with Freecycle, it’s a way to give away items to those who need them (or, find something you’d like yourself). It reduces waste and the depletion of natural resources.
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