Something for Nothing

Freecycle.org is an international community created in 2003 by Deron Beal, a resident of Tuscon, Ariz., who worked for a recycling company and got tired of watching perfectly good products go to (recycled) waste. Now with more than 3 million members in 75 countries, Freecycle.org is a salvager’s paradise, and the Nashville chapter—which operates through a Yahoo message board—is thriving. And the best part is, everything is free.

That’s right, everything traded on Nashville Freecycle—from cars to umbrellas, stereo systems to vacuum cleaner bags—is free. Donors receive the benefit of knowing they’ve kept one more item out of a landfill while simultaneously helping out their neighbors.

Say you live in Bellevue and your daughter outgrew her old bicycle. You start by sending an “Offer” email to the list, with a headline like: “Offer: child’s pink bicycle, Bellevue.” Nashville Freecycle asks that you include your general location so that interested parties can weigh the travel time and convenience of picking up the item. If someone is interested in the bicycle, they will send you a private email and work out the details of the pickup. That’s all there is to it.

You can also post a request for an item you want by titling your email “Wanted.” Some of the requests and donations are so specific—one man recently requested a “Neon hot dog sign,”—that the chances of hooking up with the appropriate donor or receiver seem very slim. But with the thousands of Nashville Freecycle members, it frequently works; a Donelson man just gave away a 90-gallon fish tank and nine fish. Like your mother used to say, it never hurts to ask.

But not everything is fair game at Nashville Freecycle. Political signs, medicine, adult toys, partially used cosmetics and shampoos, and copyrighted materials such as CDs and DVDs are off limits. So are roommate requests. “If it’s not keeping something out of the landfill, it’s not appropriate,” is Nashville Freecycle’s motto. The lone exception is offers for unwanted pets, although the moderators warn against people seeking animals for subversive or cruel reasons and ask that owners visit petrescue.com for help finding a home before posting an offer.

So when you clean out your attic or declutter your bedroom this summer, don’t throw away your old Walkman or the Thigh Master you bought from Suzanne Somers but never used. Sign up at groups.yahoo.com/group/NashvilleFreecycle and give it away.