Free to good home
Saturday April 21, 2007
The
Guardian
About to dump that
out-of-date computer, unwanted fridge and tatty set of dining
chairs? Don't, says Pete May: someone else might want them ...
Our houses are full of them: old computers, fax machines, video
players, fridges in the garage, vinyl records, unwanted
armchairs - things we don't want but still work. Research by
gumtree.com reveals we dispose of over £5.6bn worth
of usable household items a year, including 1.35m working
fridges and freezers, and 2.6m sofas. People out there want our
redundant stuff - but how do we find them?
A few weeks ago, I tried to shift a 10-year-old Apple Power
Mac and a similarly ancient (in computer terms) Mac laptop. Both
worked, so to throw them in a skip would have been wasteful and
created toxic waste (computers can contain heavy metals and
chemicals). I'd checked the likes of Computer Aid International
(computeraid.org)
and the Community Recycling Network (crn.org.uk).
Both accepted PCs, but the words "10-year-old Apple Mac"
resulted in polite rejection.
So I tried Freecycle (uk.freecycle.org),
an online forum where people give away and pick up unwanted
stuff, free of charge. It has 4,009 communities worldwide and,
according to its online counter, 3,401,532 users. I joined my
local group and tentatively posted my message: "Offered: Power
Mac with printer and Powerbook laptop, bought in 1997 but
working fine, need to be collected." Within three hours I'd had
30 replies. Suddenly my Macs were seen as a valuable resource.
Jenny wanted the laptop for her 11-year-old son who was "a Mac
fanatic", while Julie wanted it for her soon-to-be
daughter-in-law; Ben needed computers for his charity in
Zimbabwe.
It wasn't easy to decide whom to give them to. Freecycle
etiquette dictates that you don't necessarily give things to the
first emailer - and you must reject anyone you suspect wants to
sell the goods. I opted for friendly sounding people who could
collect immediately: Andy, who'd been on disability benefit for
three years, and Ruth, a cash-starved student in Holloway. Since
then I've used Freecycle to shift two fax machines, a Zip drive,
an office desk, a child's desk, a malfunctioning Hoover, some
kitchen shelves, a washing machine and my local vicar's sofa
bed. Our fridge-freezer went to a woman with cancer who was on a
special diet and needed it for her store of juices. Our rubbish
was helping someone fight for life.
Then I visited SwapXchange, which offers items to swap from
all over the country via its website (swapxchange.org).
I exchanged a juicer and a Kenwood mixer for a bottle of organic
wine apiece. The site offers anything from a therapy couch in
Kenilworth to a garden shed in Bath; items wanted include a
tumble dryer in south London and a garden bench in exchange for
a piece of commissioned pottery in Wiltshire. SwapXchange
started life as Swap It, a site set up in 2001 by community
development worker Ellie Dale. Originally it covered just Bath
and north-east Somerset, but it became SwapXchange and went
national in 2004. "We were the first swapping site in the UK,"
says Dale. "Our aim is to have a SwapXchange for every area.
It's ideal for house clearances - one man had a huge collection
of radios and we found a home for them all."
My local SwapXchange has shifted more than 14 tonnes of
items, says Islington council's Charles Dent. "In fact, we've
just had two houses swapped on the site; at the other end of the
scale we've had a toaster swapped for a bottle of real ale."
Another way of getting rid of belongings is via Gumtree (gumtree.com)
- a popular online classified website which is free to use.
Owned by eBay, it has sites in most major UK cities, Ireland,
South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, even Poland. It claims to
have 100,000 new ads each week. I could put most of my household
junk up for sale here, swap it or even give it away. User Claire
Crutchley had two fridges she didn't want: "I posted a listing
and another family collected them within 25 minutes of it going
live." Then, of course, there's eBay - the auction site and
grandaddy of them all.
However, there are some things even these online exchanges
can't shift, including our old kitchen sink, left rusting in the
garden. Luckily I found a scrap-metal trader on the street
taking stuff from skips and persuaded him to have it. A battered
BMX bike with deflated tyres and shot gears proved equally
problematic. Finally, I left it on the street corner with a note
saying "Take if wanted": it went after two days. Charity shops
are grateful for cast-offs (most don't take furniture or
electrical goods) or try car-boot sales: there's a definite
frisson in getting 50p for your old X-Files videos.
If you're still unsure about how to declutter, try national
charity Waste Watch (wastewatch.org.uk),
which will provide details of organisations in your area that
can recycle both home and workplace waste, including computers,
electrical goods, metals, paper and glass. Spokeswoman Tina
Gillies says: "It doesn't matter how you declutter, as long as
you avoid adding to our waste mountain. Giving stuff away or
swapping it can feel great, but if you make a bit of money out
of it, that's fine, too." And if nothing else, our front gardens
will all look better without rusting vacuum cleaners, sodden
sofas and bits of discarded kitchen.
|
Reducing
Your Rubbish
We
must all take responsibility for our own rubbish.
Each household in the UK
produces a tonne of waste each year, so choosing to reduce, reuse and recycle
your rubbish can make a difference. Here’s how you can help
REDUCE THE RUBBISH YOU GENERATE
Where
possible, buy refills for products such as liquid soap, washing powder, fabric
conditioner and cosmetics.
Avoid
disposable products such as cameras, razors, paper napkins, plastic plates and
cups, batteries and nappies.
If you’re
keeping food in the fridge, put it in a reusable container instead of using
cling film or foil.
Use
rechargeable batteries and low-energy light bulbs, which will save you money as
well as reducing waste.
Avoid flimsy
supermarket carrier bags by using canvas shopping bags or heavy-duty reusable
carrier bags (‘bags for life’).
Try to avoid
over packaged goods in the supermarket. Buy loose fruit and vegetables rather
than pre packaged ones.
Buy a large
bottle of squash or a big packet of cereal that will last you a couple of weeks,
rather than several smaller ones.
If
you’re fed up with receiving unwanted direct mail, contact the Mailing
Preference Service (MPS). By registering for the scheme (which is free),
you can
limit the
amount
of unsolicited
mail you receive.
REUSE ITEMS WHENEVER YOU CAN
Reuse paper
that has only been written on or printed on one side. You can use it for
shopping lists, reminders, notes or drawing paper for children.
Reuse
envelopes by using sticky labels to cover the old address and to reseal the
envelope.
Old jars can
be used to store everything from nails and screws to foods such as coffee, tea,
sugar and home-made jams.
You can also
use them as candle holders, or a desk tidy.
Keep old sweet
or biscuit tins to store odds and ends in.
Reuse carrier
bags or buy a ‘bag for life’ from your local supermarket, to cut down on the
polythene bags you throw away.
Donate
unwanted clothes, bric-a-brac and books to your local charity shop.
You can give
books and magazines to local doctors’ surgeries or hospitals.
Reuse plastic
bottles and containers. For example, empty
ice-cream tubs can be turned into lunchboxes
and empty screw-top bottles can
carry drinks.
COMPOST ORGANIC MATTER
Composting
organic waste can reduce your household rubbish by as much as 20 per cent.
It doesn’t
need to take up much time or space and you don’t need any special equipment,
apart from a garden fork.
Local
authorities often sell compost bins, or you can make your own composting area.
You can
compost all organic waste, including vegetable peelings and trimmings, apple
cores, fruit peel, tea bags, coffee grounds, egg shells, old pure wool jumpers
and wilted flowers. You can even compost some paper products,
such as cardboard,
paper towels, bags and packaging, cardboard tubes and egg boxes.
A lot of
garden waste, such as old flowers, plants and prunings and grass mowings, can
also be composted, if they are mixed with other materials.
Don’t put the
following on a compost heap: meat and fish, glossy magazines, excessive amounts
of newspaper,
as well as dog
and cat faeces, disposable nappies and coal and coke ash.
Depending on conditions, it will take a few months to a year to create your
compost.
It can then be used in the spring and summer to improve soil, boost
the health of plants or used in tubs or planters.
RECYCLE WHATEVER YOU CAN
If your local
council offers a doorstep recycling facility, use it. If it doesn’t,
write a
letter to the local council or your local councillors to say that you’d like
one.
Public demand
can make a difference.
If you
don’t have access to a recycling scheme, try to make use of your nearest
recycling points. These are often located at supermarkets so you could combine
your
shopping trip with taking things for recycling. But avoid making a separate car
journey
– this will negate the benefits of recycling.
For recycling services in the
Borough of Ealing click below
www.ealing.gov.uk/services/recycling
useful
links
www.wastewatch.org.uk
for advice on waste reduction,
reuse and recycling of various items
www.reuze.co.uk
gives lots of tips on how to reuse
or recycle
www.rebat.com
recycling batteries
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Panayiotis Sinnos - Respect - LovePeaceHarmony