| | Published March 4th, 2009
| Freecycle, a Sustainable Way to Pass Along The Goods
| | By Sophie Braccini |  | | Craig Isaacs with his Freecycle barbecue Picture courtesy of the Isaacs family
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Becoming a member of Freecycle is easy; so is using it, and you don't have to own a bicycle. Freecycle stands for free recycling -- all you need is anything cluttering up your home that would be better off with someone who might be able to put it to good use.
"I wanted to find a way to get rid of things, but be sure that it could be re-used by someone who would really appreciate it," says Erin Hull, a Lafayette mom who's been using the free service for a year, "finding a local group where people offer and/or grab stuff for re-using them was just perfect."
The Lamorinda group of free recyclers is a spin-off the original association that was founded 5 1/2 years ago in Arizona by Deron Beal. At the time, he was working with a small non-profit organization, RISE, which provides recycling services to businesses. He watched perfectly re-usable items being thrown away and looked for a way for non-profits to get access to it for free. Beal sent out the first e-mail announcing the Freecycle Network(tm) to 30 or 40 friends and a handful of nonprofits in Tucson, Arizona. "As a result, we are currently keeping over 500 tons a day out of landfills," he says on his website, "this amounts to five times the height of Mt. Everest in the past year alone, when stacked in garbage trucks." The original cause of helping non-profits get what they need for free is still one of the main uses of the service.
The motivation is the same for the owner/moderator of the Lamorinda group, Ken Dreyfuss. The goal of Lamorinda Freecycle is to reduce waste in Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda by connecting individuals who are throwing away goods with others who are seeking them. "A lot of non-profit groups are accessing our site," says Dreyfuss, "teachers, schools, and even a cat group, among others, are getting some of what they need on Freecycle."
Craig Isaacs of Lafayette, who has been using the group for years, agrees, "I've seen a lot of non-profits on the site, school teachers who need stuff for their class, boxes of crayons, scissors," he said, "and once I happened to have many of them; it's a great system." Isaacs remembers giving a dog kennel to the SPCA, and many other things to individuals as well. "I've given away a computer hard drive, Mac books, I gave away a video player, a basket ball hoop, things we don't need anymore and someone else could. This is a break in the buying cycle we are caught in." Isaacs has also acquired items on Freecycle, "the favorite thing I got is a barbecue, and it's the best barbecue!" he says.
To make sure that the network runs smoothly and commercial free as it grows, the role of the moderator is key. "I check the messages daily," says Dreyfuss, "I try to control the content, and accept new members."
Dreyfuss says he does not have to intervene very often. "Sometimes I have to remove messages that propose the reselling of things, which is not the purpose of the group," he notes, "no money is ever involved." The moderator can delete messages, and ban a person from the group; Dreyfuss remembers having done this only three times in five years.
Hull continues to use the service with a sense of usefulness, "I gave a full box of play-dough tools for toddlers to someone who needed it for her nephew," she says, "it is very useful for artists as well, who need things that I would see as garbage, like broken tiles, for someone's garbage is someone else's art."
Some of Hull's friends told her that they were a bit wary of leaving things on their porches; Hull herself has sometimes delivered or agreed on a pick-up place. Isaacs has people come to the site of his Lafayette business. "Check the safety tips and rules that are posted on the web site," says Isaacs, adding that he never heard of any issue arising from his network. For more information, go to the web site: freecyle.org, and the Lamorinda group: //groups.yahoo.com/group/LMFN-Lafayette-Moraga-Orinda/.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA