How to Freecycle your things instead of throwing them out
We had to be quick as we had to get back home to look after my son as Bealers was due to visit Tewkesbury at 1pm to pick up a free sofa we had been given using the local Freecycle network.
I was telling my three year old about our new sofa but I was distracted and feeling more than a bit cross by the people I could see bunging plastic washing up bowls and plate-stands into the refuse container instead of taking them to the local charity shops (there are three in our town just one minute’s walk from the dump). I tsk-tsk’d about this and mentioned something out loud to my daughter as am teaching her green values but was interupted by her exclaiming ‘Look Mummy that man is putting a lovely blue sofa into the rubbish dump’. And so he was, cushion by cushion and then the main powder blue chesterfield settee itself got heaved from his car and over the side of the vast refuse container clearly labelled ‘Landfill’.
Now all those who know me will confirm that I’m pretty emotional at the very best of times but this ignorant act really made me furious and for a couple of reasons.
- Since downshifting to a more rural life at the begining of the summer we have been very grateful to receive a number of unwanted furniture for NOUGHT pence using the local Freecycle networks. We are being careful with our money since I quit my City salary and we are now living on Darren’s salary only so our being frugal by taking possesion of a couple of unwanted wooden chests of drawers, mahogany bookcases, a beautiful big desk, space duvet cover sets and outdoor toys for the kiddies has meant a great deal to us. To stand and watch someone throw what looked to me like a pretty handsome piece of furniture into the industrial sized bin was to deny it to all those needy folks who would love to have it in their houses.
- How can anyone put such a huge item into a refuse dump without thinking of what will happen to it next? It isn’t going to magic itself away despite it undoubtedly being replaced with something swankier in the house it used to reside. The sofa will sit in a festering hole somewhere on this planet and at some point in the future we, our children or our grandchildren will bitterly regret that their is no more space available for rubbish and we probably won’t be allowed to burn it either.
Normally I would have ignored my great British reserve and would have gone over to have a word with the guy who was about to lob it in if only to spread the word about Freecycle’s principles and how so many people would have willingly come to his house to collect the sofa without him having to lug it to his car. This time I didn’t - I don’t know why. I had my little kid with me (and she needed the loo)