Website Offers Items for ‘Free’

Social networking meets recycling in this week’s “Going green, Saving green,” and proves there’s truth to the phrase one man’s trash, is another man’s treasure.

Freecycle is a website that helps keep garbage out of landfills all while helping those strapped for cash.

According to Heather Dudley, Owner of Macon’s Freecycle Chapter, “You can literally save your money on anything you can think of. It can be offered or posted on Freecycle. 

Freecycle offers no strings attached recycled giving, which means instead of throwing something away after you’re done using it you can pass it on.

Active Freecycle member, Lindsey Wilson says, “There are a lot of people out there offering things, and there are a lot of people picking up things so it’s really a sure fire way to eventually find whatever you may need.”

Anyone can join the site for free. Macon’s network has close to 5,000 members. Dudley says, “It’s quick, easy, and if you’re lazy it’s super easy cause you can just send an email and someone comes to your house if you want to.”

The Freecycle concept has spread to more than 85 countries, and every day it keeps over 500 tons of trash out of landfills. If you stack all the garbage up that equals five times the height of Mount Everest.

Dudley says, “It can be something as simple as a few extra clothes you don’t need anymore or I’ve given away things as large as washers and dryers.” 

Items that are posted don’t even have to work,as long as they follow the number one rule: they have to be free.