I found out about The Freecycle Network a couple years ago and have been picking up free stuff all over town ever since. With Freecycle you can look through a list of things that are offered by people in your area that no longer want certain possessions anymore and you can then pick these things up from them for free. The same people you pick up from use Freecycle to post what they no longer want to keep (or need, or can handle) for some reason. They have people come to their home (or meeting spot) to take it off their hands or even just to make room in their homes. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I see listed. Don’t think it’s garbage either. One person’s trash is another’s treasure. I’ve received a fine couch that I’ve used for years and people still comment on, an old piano that all my friends can play better than me , and more healthy plants and garden equipment than I have space for. I saw a car on there once…it didn’t work, but still…a freakin’ car!
One of my favorite features is that you can subscribe to email notifications based on certain keywords you set up. For instance when I got into gardening, I set my Freecycle email notification keywords to ‘plant’, ‘pots’, ‘garden’, and ’soil’. Within the following weeks I picked up things like plants, pots, gardening equipment and more. Freecycle helped me so well that changed my keywords within two months cause I had amassed a serious collection of tools, soil, and plants and was myself running out of space. If your a pianist, try ‘piano’, ‘keyboard’, or even ‘harpsichord’. Who knows, maybe someday when you’ve forgotten about it, you’ll get an email saying that there’s a harpsichord a couple blocks down the road.
Freecycle is a non-profit group that serves the entire world with over 6,000,000 million members. Reuse and recycle other people’s things that you may love and keep landfills slightly less filled in the process. Not to mention you’ll always have a place to go when you want to give something back and get rid of something at the same time. There’s an amazing community within Freecycle. Every time I sign on, which can be frequent at times, there’s a backlog of free stuff I missed (that don’t have my keywords obviously) all within miles of my home and sometimes even on my street. It’s amazing that more people don’t know about it. Yay to free stuff for everyone!
The Freecycle Network at Freecycle.org
Ever picked up something amazing from Freecycle? Let me know in the comments. If you’re new to Freecycle, tell me how you like it. I was hooked and I know you’ll be too…just wait.
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January 17th, 2009 at 12:39 am
Everyone should definitely find a way to be “green”.
Susan’s last blog post..Top Broadway Tickets for the Week
January 17th, 2009 at 7:46 am
agreed. even though it doesn’t actually take away from our footprints, it helps in an indirect way to at least halt it.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
I signed up for the yahoo group in my area about a year ago, Make no mistake there are some lemons. At least in my area. Most of the lemons are the craigslist spammer types.
My best experience however was when I took a dog kennel off some older man. The kennel was practically new. After I stuffed it in my car I chatted up the man for a moment.
We got to talking about computers and the internet in general.. I was blown away so much by his knowledge I ended up chatting up a few hours more..
By the end of our BSing the man convinced me to walk away with two imacs and some prefs. It was a great gesture and one that i highly doubt i would have received had i not singed up for this service
Lets keep it this way!
– Sean
Seanzy’s last blog post..Offical Launch Of SaintSeanzys.com
March 9th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
I agree. everyonce in a while a lemon but only that i’ve heard. i’ve had about 5 or 6 interactions and one was just disappointment of the product that’s all. i haven’t been as lucky as you but definitely very happy.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Great idea!
I like and support it.
Why we have to come to this point that all need to do that.
Lest not waste anymore time, lets act.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:46 am
Ill check my place out. I just moved in so I hope they have this freecycle around
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July 28th, 2009 at 5:30 am
Hey very nice blog!! I will bookmark your blog and take the feeds also…
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