Recycle? Freecycle!
We had some pretty rough mid-winter weather here in Perth last month but as a veteran of many British summers I am accustomed to bad weather. One storm loosened our TV aerial, causing it to bang around noisily so we paid a guy a hundred bucks to climb onto the roof and remove it. We use cable so we didn't actually need it. He said it was a good aerial, still in lovely condition but, no, he couldn't be persuaded to take it away.
This left us with a huge (2m x 3 m) antenna and a heavy metal pole in a courtyard the size of a pocket handkerchief. It had to go, but how?
As with so many of life's problems, the solution was to be found in the pages of the Reader's Digest. I had plenty of time to scrutinize the mag as I waited 45 minutes in the waiting room of the local quack. The answer to my problem was freecycle.org.
It's a Yahoo group. I joined (which pushed the total Perth membership to 4,901) and began to peruse the site. All I had to do was post a short ad on the site beginning' OFFER, Large TV Antenna' and the name of the suburb. Within an hour I'd had an enquiry and a firm offer to collect. I phoned him, left the antenna outside the house and now it's gone from my life forever. All that remained for me to do was to post a 'taken' message so that I wouldn't be emailed any further enquiries. A win - win situation.
All sorts of things were on offer. I was particularly tempted by the ad for a pair of old jeans, frayed and full of holes. They must have had a lot of sentimental value to the owner for him to think of advertising rather than binning them.
And, of course, I can use the site to ask for things I need that other people might have to give away. I'll let you know if I get a positive response to my request for a sack of used fivers.
This left us with a huge (2m x 3 m) antenna and a heavy metal pole in a courtyard the size of a pocket handkerchief. It had to go, but how?
As with so many of life's problems, the solution was to be found in the pages of the Reader's Digest. I had plenty of time to scrutinize the mag as I waited 45 minutes in the waiting room of the local quack. The answer to my problem was freecycle.org.
It's a Yahoo group. I joined (which pushed the total Perth membership to 4,901) and began to peruse the site. All I had to do was post a short ad on the site beginning' OFFER, Large TV Antenna' and the name of the suburb. Within an hour I'd had an enquiry and a firm offer to collect. I phoned him, left the antenna outside the house and now it's gone from my life forever. All that remained for me to do was to post a 'taken' message so that I wouldn't be emailed any further enquiries. A win - win situation.
All sorts of things were on offer. I was particularly tempted by the ad for a pair of old jeans, frayed and full of holes. They must have had a lot of sentimental value to the owner for him to think of advertising rather than binning them.
And, of course, I can use the site to ask for things I need that other people might have to give away. I'll let you know if I get a positive response to my request for a sack of used fivers.
Labels: freecycle; recycle
posted by Kay @ 1:32 PM
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