Freecycle puts unwanted junk to new use
"One person's trash is another's treasure," has a new twist at Fredericton's Freecycle network.
On the Freecycle website people can post things they want to get rid of, or the things they want to receive.
Lacie Lyon started up the Freecycle network in Fredericton. She says it helped declutter her life.
"I Freecycle everything that's taking up space in my home; like piles of National Geographic magazines and kids' clothes and Christmas ornaments...I've even Freecycled a fridge," she says.
Lyon says Freecycle is the best way to divert waste from landfills.
"If you're offering cassette tapes, you don't know that donating them to the thrift store is actually going to get them beyond the thrift store doors and not into the landfill. But if you list them on Freecycle and list the titles, then someone's going to say 'I want those.' "
It costs nothing to join Freecycle. The only rule is that everything posted must be 100 per cent free.
Alison Aiton of Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission, says things that could be reused take up a lot of room in landfill.
"We get everything here at the landfill. A lot of the things that take up a lot of room are big furniture items, you know, like stoves and fridges, beds and mattresses, things like that that really, really, fill up the landfill," she says.
Right now, 146 Canadian cities are linked to the Freecycle network and more than 700,000 Freecycle throughout the world.
Freecycle members post their free items on Yahoo news groups.
There are Freecycle members in Bathurst, Moncton, Grand Falls, Saint John and Woodstock.
- Link:Freecyle in Canada