As the “green” movement picks up momentum on the Big Island and across the country, and our landfills start to spill over, public consciousness is growing about recycling and reusing what once was considered “trash.”

Recycle Hawai’i’s motto is “One person’s trash is another’s treasure,” and this philosophy is being practiced actively by over 2,000 people on the Big Island through the online group “Freecycle.”

According to the Freecycle Web site, the concept is simple: “You have something you no longer need and you wish to ‘recycle’ it rather than throw it into the garbage where eventually it will go to clutter our shrinking landfills. You can post items to give away, or make a request for wanted items, but the bottom line is that it has to be free!”

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If you can’t sell the computer or give it away through a site like Freecycle (http://freecycle.org), donate it to a charity. You have a wide variety of choices, from local computer groups such as the Capital PC User Group (http://reboot.cpcug.org) and Washington Apple Pi (http://wap.org/about/donations) to larger nonprofit organizations such as the National Cristina Foundation (http://cristina.org).

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• Freecycle.org. As the old saying goes, one man’s trash is another’s treasure, and at this Web site, you can advertise your junk to folks who might find value in it. They’ll often even take it off your hands for free. You have to join as a member to participate. Freecycle.org has Southern Nevada networks in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Mesquite.

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Ebay, Craig’s list and Amazon are websites where you can find and buy anything but there’s a new site that’s drawing in thousands of fans everyday.

The website allows you to get everything for free and at the same time help the environment too. It’s called Freecycle.org and it’s purpose is to keep all that stuff you want to get rid of from piling up in the landfills.

Members of Freecycle can list items they want to get rid of and if someone wants those items, they can pick them up.

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Whether you have a job or not, the words “freebies” and “bargains” probably sound really good to you right now. And getting your hands on them may be easier than you think.

One of our viewers, Robin Wendrick, sent us an email saying she’s been getting some great deals on websites like Craigslist.com and Freecycle.org.

On there she finds links to things people are giving away for free, everything from furniture to appliances. That is if you don’t mind picking them up and the word “second hand.”

Wendrick said, “Big deal! I don’t care if it’s used if I’m getting it for free I’m getting it for free. That 1,000 dollars can go to my mortgage or my utility bill.”

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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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Teva Ingrassia is a member of freecycle, an online network of some three-point-four million people in hometowns across America. They give and get stuff for free.
“I’ve been involved with freecycle for about two years and we’ve gotten everything from the smallest

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It used to be true that nothing in life was for free. That is, until freecycle.org was born.

The idea is to exchange items you no longer want and need with others (and vice versa) - for free! You select a group of people in your area, sign up to be on their e-mail list, and then you post the things you have to give away, while simultaneously sifting through your e-mail for someone else’s junk that you view as treasure.

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If you’re like me, every week you faithfully set out your recycling bin next to the garbage, trying to do your part in saving the earth. You put in the cans, bottles, newspapers, cardboard and scrap paper; maybe if you’re really ambitious, you have a green waste container and a motor oil receptacle, too.
But then you wonder: What in the world do I do with all this other stuff?

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Thick, velvet curtains, in red or any other color, can cost from $20 to $200, or sometimes even less, if you scour garage sales and freecycle communities. If you have a teeny screen, it’s even cheaper. Just get a small amount of fabric from the fabric store. Rig up a simple pulley system and viola — you’ve got the classic, movie-going backdrop.

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