STILL not enough people know about the Freecycle Network
More evidence this week that not everyone is aware of how to use the Freecycle Network to dispose of things one no longer needs or loves, when I went to put a cardboard box in the recycling centre I found to my horror/disbelief a huge pile of pristine, beautiful hardback books about Britain’s countryside, villages and wildlife.
Look even Big Ted (b. 1971) has come out to enjoy the new arrivals!
As a self-confessed, non-fiction book freak I was completely amazed that anyone could dump such wonderful books into the container which was destined to be pulped and made into recycled paper and cardboard. Grrrrr and aaaarrrgh! What is the matter with people today? To me this is yet more evidence that society has completely forgotten the value of Things. Just a few generations ago such books would have been highly prized luxury items to be looked after and cherished yet today they are just refuse (to some people).
I went and fetched the friendly recycling assistant who I’d said Hi to on my way in, fluttered my eyelashes a little more and told him there were some books I’d love to rescue. Apparently he had to retrieve them steathily as his supervisor was around and the rules are that people aren’t allowed to remove items from the containers… In total I got 9 super new books which the kids and I looked at all afternoon finding maps of places we knew, pictures of creatures we hadn’t known the name of etc. but felt sad that the other books in the bin hadn’t also gone to more loving homes.
Yet more eveidence also this week when my amazing friend Janet continued the very sad task of having to clear out the huge house of her good friend Emmy who lived in the house next door for 90 years (and owned the one we live in) until she died a couple of months ago. She told me that it was heartbreaking work not because of the passing of her dear friend but because Janet is super-green and recycles everything and the people she was working with to clear Emmy’s treasures so the house can be sold are not and almost everything the woman owned was going straight in the skip as they didn’t know what else to do with it. Beautiful collectable china, amazing framed photographs and watercolours, no end of fabulous kitchen equipment (don’t worry the microwave is no longer destined for the landfill as it will be rehomed in Bealers’ offices!), books, furniture EVERYTHING was being chucked away instead of being offered out on the Freecycle Network to people who would be able to get years of further use out of each item.
I promised Janet I would collect a bunch of Freecycle flyers from the local library and always have a stash on me in case I speak to people about the scheme as it looks more organised than a scribbled URL on a scrap of paper which one would lose almost immediatly.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
[...] a snake was so exciting for me that I called my mum who asked me to identify it properly (using the lovely countryside books I once found in the local skip) to make sure it wasn’t a viper/adder. It wasn’t and I [...]