MARLBORO — I was moving in with my boyfriend, and we needed more space for my office and two children. His dark, dusty attic was piled high with old baby cribs, moth-eaten blankets, outdated law books, and squirrel-infested tchotchkes.
The attic was a dirty, scary mess. But it was space. I decided to renovate it, and I called a waste disposal company to arrange for a Dumpster to be brought in. It would cost more than $1,000, they told me before they refused the service.
I was flabbergasted: a company saying “no” to a paid job? They were firm. I needed to post my items on Freecycle first, then I could pay them to collect anything that was still left.
Freecycle is a free, nonprofit network of email lists started in 2003 by Arizona's Deron Beal. Members of the list can receive offers of donations by email.
One needs to have something to offer to give away to join, but once in, members can request items they are seeking and, of course, accept others' offers.
Instead of hoping to find, or get rid of, an item curbside, now people can swap from the ease of their own home. Plus items would not be ruined as they sat outside waiting for a new home.
I was dubious. Who would ever want what was in the attic? And what exactly was in the attic anyway?
I went upstairs with a clipboard and began making a list and posted it on Freecycle.
The cribs and mattresses went first; there was actually a line of people wanting them. Other things started going, too: an old-fashioned telephone with a broken wire, a dot-matrix printer, chipped pottery and crocks, boxes of old, dusty books.
I was amazed.
After just two weeks, I was down to the old, squirrel-eaten roll of threadbare rugs. “No one would ever want these,” I thought.
But I was wrong. A gentleman cheerfully arrived at my home and dragged the massive rolls of soiled carpet down from my third-floor attic into his truck.
My curiosity got the best of me. I had to ask what he planned to do with them. I pointed out that they were soiled and in poor shape. (I had noted this in the Freecycle posting, too.)
The gentleman laughed and explained that he was a hunter, and rugs like these were perfect for insulating his hunting cabin in the winter.
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Now, I was on the list. Dozens of freecycle announcements filled my mailbox daily. People were giving away furniture, pets, tools, clothes, toys, camping gear. It was wonderful.
My children got the cutest furry ferrets, I got houseplants, we stocked up on arts and crafts supplies for the winter, and we continued to clean out the house.
The best part about offering products for sale on Freecycle is that, as part of the Freecycle rules, the takers will come to your place and haul it out themselves. That has been a great help to me when items are bulky and heavy, like those awful rugs.
The takers have turned out to be wonderful local people. They have always been so grateful and thankful, though I felt more grateful for them taking the items off my hands and not making me haul them to the dump.
A young lady came and took some old metal sign posts that we had unearthed in an excavation and gave me a glass of freshly picked dahlias. It has been great fun visiting people who had items for pickup, too. We made friends with a houseful of birds when picking up some picture frames.
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Beal estimates that 30 to 40 tons of products are traded daily on Freecycle. He started the organization when his Tuscon, Ariz. trash recycling company began receiving non-recyclable, but useable, products from the businesses he was serving.
Rather than hauling the old computers and office furniture to the landfill, Beal began calling around the community looking for homes for the unwanted goods. He then began emailing friends.
The email messages were forwarded around the community, and thus began Freecycle. “I just sent the information out to my friends and 10 to 15 nonprofits and said, 'Spread the word,'” he told Christian Science Monitor writer Tim King. “You get free stuff, and you get to give away the junk in your garage.”
Within two years, Freecycle grew to be a global network of more than 900,000 members. There are Freecycle communities in Germany, Japan, and Australia. In the United States, Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, have the highest number of members.
Today, the Freecycle website claims, “the Freecycle concept has spread to over 85 countries, where there are thousands of local groups representing millions of members.” As a result, the organization and its local chapters are keeping more than 500 tons of product a day out of landfills.
These products, they say, amount to “five times the height of Mount Everest in the past year alone, when stacked in garbage trucks.”
Freecycle's mission is to “build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources and eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community.”
Operating on a budget of just than $200,000 a year, it seems Freecycle is doing just that. I know my attic, wallet, and heart have benefitted from Freecycle and the wonderful people I have met through using the service.
The Windham Solid Waste Management District has also benefitted, as it was saved from a Dumpster full of “good stuff” that I almost dumped on them.
For more information about Freecycle or to join Brattleboro Freecycle, visit the website.