Thursday, July 08, 2004

Freecyclin' in the USA

That’s FREEcycling, not recycling, not bicycling... I recently joined a local freecycling email group and this afternoon I’m headed to pick up a free item from someone who lives near me that I don’t know. The idea of freecycling is to give away items that you no longer want and to take items that other people no longer want. This is person-to-person and you don’t have to fuss with collecting enough stuff to hold a yard sale or driving around to yard sales (although yard sales have their place and I’m not dissing them.) Many people freecycle without realizing it on a small basis among friends and family. For instance, we’ll borrow a lot of Kevin’s clothes from family and friends who have children that have already passed through Kevin’s size range or who are not yet there. Maybe you bought new patio furniture but the old furniture isn’t ready for the trash, it just needs a new place to call home so you give it to your younger sister who just bought her own house.



The idea of freecycling isn’t new, but the organized freecycling community via Yahoo! email groups is. Check out freecycle.org for details.

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