Eco Family

Freecycle - An eco friendly swap shop

Freecycling is particularly popular with families due to the almost constant turnover of items such as clothing, toys and furniture, which are expensive if you buy them new and end up cluttering the home when they’re no longer used. Visit your local Freecycle site and you’re likely to find offers and requests for everything from prams, rabbit hutches, clothing, and bunk beds to computer games. 

When Sarah Jones’s washing machine broke down, she wrote a plea on the website of the Berwickshire Freecycle group. Then the mother of four waited … as the pile of dirty washing grew. 

“As our baby is in cloth nappies, which I received from another Freecycler, you can imagine that the washing machine breaking down was the last thing we needed,” says Sarah, who lives in Duns with her husband and children. 

“I received an email from a local Freecycler who had an unwanted washing machine and he even offered to deliver it for us. Then another came up on the Edinburgh Freecycle site and it was a washer-dryer that works perfectly. So it was a happy ending. I also received an email from someone offering to do some washing if I needed it, which was very kind.” 

This friendly network of disposal and acquisition was set up by Freecycle, a non-profit organisation, in 2003. Originally intended to reduce waste in Tucson, Arizona, it has now spread across the world. The Edinburgh group alone totals 10,665 members. 

“It’s amazing what people will give away to complete strangers,” says Sarah, “and it’s always done with a smile!” 

Visit www.freecycle.org to find your local group 

REALITY CHECK

Freecycle has more than 2 million members worldwide. This total includes: 

More than 31,000 members in Scotland 

10,665 members in Edinburgh  

2,853 members in Aberdeen 

1,900 in Glasgow  

Get Freecycling!!

DID YOU KNOW?

Former US Vice President Al Gore’s climate-change film, An Inconvenient Truth, is being introduced to the curriculum of Scottish secondary schools. Each will receive a DVD of the film, while Learning and Teaching Scotland will devise new teaching materials about the environment in time for the 2007/2008 school year.