The Freecycle Network (freecycle.org) keeps 500 tons out of landfill every day

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and so it remains true in the case of an on-line reuse network called The Freecycle Network™ (TFN), a now global phenomenon boasting thousands of groups and millions of members.

In 2003, TFN founder Deron Beal, sent out the first email announcing The Freecycle Network to about 30 or 40 friends and a handful of nonprofits in Tucson, Arizona.

There hadn't previously been an effective way to communicate about unwanted items with residents within an area, to see if they could reuse the item; this need was about to be filled and it was going to become known as Freecycle.

Email groups were set-up to allow fast and easy posting of item descriptions and the subsequent reply from would-be re-homers; the item could simply be passed on and never had to end up in the landfill.

What was critical about this process, and remains true to this day, everything posted is completely and utterly...free.

The Freecycle concept has since spread to over 85 countries, where there are thousands of local groups representing millions of members.  People helping people and "changing the world one gift at a time."

Through the efforts of this organization, Freecycle keeps over 500 tons a day out of landfills!  This amounts to five times the height of Mt. Everest in the past year alone, when stacked in garbage trucks!

By giving freely with no strings attached, members of The Freecycle Network help instill a sense of generosity of spirit as they strengthen local community ties and promote environmental sustainability and reuse. People from all walks of life have joined together to turn trash into treasure.

Each group is supported and operated by a local moderator (or maybe more than one, depending on the group size), they're always on hand to answer any questions and they're in your community to help drive the group.

Basically, here's how it works -

1. You find your local group by visiting freecycle.org
2. You post details about the item you don't need/want anymore
3. Your post is sent out to all subscribers in your town/city
4. Interested members reply to you advising that they'd like your item
5. You pick a recipient, arrange a meet and give them the item

There you have it, you just saved something from the landfill and you helped out a neighbor.  How easy (and pretty cool) was that?

The Freecycle Network is a growing movement, as more people find out about this amazing idea, more stuff becomes available, more people join the groups and so more and more and more, is saved from the landfill.  That's something we can all feel pretty good about.

You can follow Freecycle on Twitter, Google+ or find them on Facebook.  Their website provides a portal to all global groups and TFN are currently in the process of completing the build of their own platform dubbed MyFreeycycle which allows members to have access to even more functions and facilitate a better experience for members.

The Freecycle Network: UK Director

I am thrilled to announce that I have accepted the UK Director position for The Freecycle Network.  I'm really looking forward to the challenges that this will create and am excited about working with all of the folks in the UK continue to drive forward the world's largest online recycling group!

The Freecycle Network is an online environment which promotes the reuse of items rather than throwing away and them ending up in the landfill.  This is done by 'gifting' your unwanted stuff to members of your own community.  Everything must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages.

If you haven't already checked it out, visit http://www.freecycle.org today and sign up for your free account.

Why I, personally, can NEVER support #Freegle

So this is a rewrite of the previous blog by the same name after it was strangely deleted. I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories, so I'm assuming this is probably something I did. Still, I've changed my password to be on the safe side :)

Imagine you're an office manager for a law firm (for the sake of this example, 'Freecycle Associates'), your duties include organising the filing, opening and closing the office, answering phones, speaking to new clients, managing existing clients. You know, the usual stuff.

Now, imagine you become unhappy with your employer, you start to look around for new work, you find a startup company (for the sake of this example, 'Freegle Associates').

However, you like your office, your chair, you have your name on one of those little plaque things on your desk and your name is so very eloquently etched onto the frosted glass door to your office.

So, you speak to your new employer, make all the arrangements, and one Friday night, you decide that over the weekend, you're going to make that move.

Now, all seems fair enough so far, right?

Well, instead of actually moving to 'Freegle Associates', you instead change the locks on all the office doors, all of the 'Freegle Associates' staff are invited into what used to be the 'Freecycle Associates' office and all of the clients files are kept inside the same building.

So, Monday morning comes along and the 'Freecycle Associates' CEO says "Hold on just a cotton pickin' minute, you can leave the company, that's your decision, but you've kept all of our stuff, including our client files!".

"Well..." you reply, "...the way I see it is that I handle the client when they call, I'm the one who gets their coffee when they come in for an appointment and I'm the one who spends all that time filing their paperwork".

Well now, call me crazy, but as lovely as I'm sure you may be as an office manager, I'm going to go ahead and assume that the reputation and name of the law firm is the reason clients give business to the company. They don't arbitrarily choose a law firm because it's the first one they flipped to in the phone book (although, that's a possibility, I don't think it represents the majority).

So, if you, as an office manager want to go work for 'Freegle Associates', good for you. You'll be performing the same job, but to take something that doesn't belong to you isn't right, it just isn't.

So...you still with me?

When Freegle moderators decided they didn't want to stay within The Freecycle Network, I for one wish them all the success in the world. Go off, create a group, if you do well, people will join; if you don't, so be it.

But, to do so by simply renaming the group, disabling any Freecycle accounts and moving on (thus keeping all the members that had joined a Freecycle group) isn't fair to the members that joined that Freecycle group, it isn't fair to The Freecycle Network and it isn't fair to those of us who continue to volunteer our time to Freecycle.

Freegle, in my opinion, conducts itself inappropriately in this manner. And because they continue to do so, I, personally, can NEVER support Freegle.

The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,836 groups with 6,577,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your community by going to freecycle.org and entering it into the search box. Have fun!