Monday 5 October 2009

Recycle unwanted goods in your own community and meet new people


Don’t throw it away – give it away!

You might not need your old sofa or wheelbarrow any more – but there might be someone just round the corner who does. Or if there’s something you’d like, someone nearby might have one that they might just throw away if they don’t know what else to do with it.
Freegle groups make this happen online. Sign up, post an OFFER of something you want to get rid of, or a WANTED for something you need.
All groups within this organisation operate with a basic principle – all offers and requests must be freegle (free and legal).
The aim is to keep anything reusable out of our landfill sites. Meeting new people helps to develop local community networks and friendships in the process.
Freegle is an email list hosted on Yahoo! Groups that allows you to give stuff away when you need to get rid of it but don’t want to throw it in the bin. Or save something from landfill by asking for it; perhaps someone has just what you need that they were about to throw away.
For example:
You have a washing machine you don’t need and may need to take to the tip.
You join your local Freegle group.
You post an OFFER on the list, seen by everyone who looks on the site or receives messages in their inbox (members get to choose whether to receive all messages or just view online).
Interested members will reply to you privately.
You choose who you would like to give it to.
Between you, you arrange for them to come and pick up the washing machine.
It gets collected.
You’ve given away your machine with little effort, and you also got to meet someone new from your neighbourhood in the process.
Someone local to you who needed your unwanted machine can now use it, fix it or use parts for spares.
It didn’t go into landfill. Great for both you and our planet. Everyone wins!
Likewise, if you need an item you can request one on the list in the same way and if someone has what you’d like they will contact you off-list to offer it.
The group moderators will be happy to help you if you need any advice about any part of the above process.

For the local group in Denbighshire visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/northdenbighshirefreegle/

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