FreeCycling

Outside Looking In: Freecycling

Bulletin boards are a dying breed. Once a powerful information outlet and community builder, they are becoming harder to find, like the public pay phone. One can still spot them in the occasional café, locally owned grocery, laundry, or mechanic’s garage, but they are not the ubiquitous resource they once were. The bane of corporate greed, bulletin boards offered free advertising of cheap, bartered, even free goods and services. They were free to use, unregulated, and often amusing. The cork was not judgmental, supporting both religious tracts and “For a Good Time, call…” promotionals. Some ads were simply business cards, while others were elaborately hand-crafted works of art that should have been canonized and catalogued. Creative spelling and poor penmanship could be found pinned next to crisp photocopied mass-production promos. There was no limit to the stuff of free enterprise. Imagine how many relationships were spawned by the bulletin board…what labor was bartered for a motor boat…millions of kittens given away…

Though they have not seemed to take note of the bulletin board, sociologists have noted the decline of civic groups, porch sitters and pay phones. They blame this ever-increasingly insular society on our economic boom, on air conditioning, and on television. Among the theorists, Robert Putnam, who penned the memorable “Bowling Alone” develops a convincing thesis along those lines. After the great wars, men returned needing a sense of camaraderie, and that was filled in part by civic organizations, bowling alleys and houses of worship. The economy was booming, and developments sprung up everywhere, like weeds, to accommodate the returning service men and to create a new lifestyle, the suburb, the bedroom community, etc. Houses were set in neighborhoods with designed traffic ways, with fewer sidewalks, with gates. They were often built with little or no porch to sit on, for with the advent of television and air conditioning, people retreated indoors.

Other advances have also affected our culture, like fast food which has soured digestion and dinner conversation. Cell phones have all-but-trumped the pay phone. And the Internet—well, the Internet gets kicked around like the Anti-Christ, blamed for just about every social illness. Altogether its built a curious climate in which a teenager may not know anyone else in their cul de sac, but s/he has “friended” over 234 people in social networks online. One may be able to pull down on a city from satellite imaging to even see faces and storefronts, yet not be able to find Ash St. with both hands.

Common sense has gone digital and sense of community will wink out with the power some day. The vestiges of bygone days, bulletin boards and real coffee shops—all but gone. Alas, it seems today only a small inner circle of folk know where to find and how to use a bulletin board. Our circle of community shrinks, our numbers dwindle, and our sphere of influence is smaller than a grapefruit.

I would offer, however, that not all hope is lost. My regular readership knows of my adoration of the Internet, and yes, yet again I would offer that one way to recapture that fleeting sense of community might well-be online. An electronic bulletin board is no substitute for a tangible one, but it might foster friendship, might muster commonalities if not true communities, and maybe, just maybe, something really good could come of all that. Fact is, I could rattle off a dozen web sites that speak to my interests and share freely, from gardening to parenting. I have bookmarked, saved, printed, so many great places to go over the years! Recently, in my mining of the world wide web, I found a small vein of gold that is worth sharing here: free-recyling.

The Free-recycling--or freecycling--movement has grown since the launch of The Freecycle Network in 2003. There are more than 4,000 Freecycle communities reporting some 3.5 million members. The concept is simple, that one man’s trash is another’s treasure. The mission statement of www.freecycle.org reads: “Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community.”

Freecyle.org issued a press release that claims they are growing at the rate of over 20,000 new members each and every week. “The Freecycle Network has grown to encompass over 4,000 cities from Adelaide to Istanbul, in over 75 countries.” It goes on to report that freecycling, “enables individuals to gift items in their local communities rather than to throw them away, thus keeping over 300 tons out of landfills daily.”

I’m all about saving landfill space. My wife insists that must be my personal mission; I hear her grumble that every time we sort through our garage sale and storage debris. I am also enthusiastic about bargains, and nothing is cheaper than free! Above all, I find giving to be very rewarding emotionally, churning out good karma by the bucket load.

I like to think of it more as cyber curbside than a cyber swap meet, for there are no strings attached. That’s a fundamental of all freecycling, free sharing, etc. If someone responds to your post offering your old deep freeze, they do not have to swap something in return, no chores, no cash. They don’t have to bring anything to the transaction (well, if they’re fetching your deep freeze, they’d need a dolly and a pickup).

All the usual concerns apply to free-cycling over the Internet, including stalkers, scammers, and con artists. One cannot go trotting out into cyberspace without always being vigilant and mindful of such things, sorry to say. There are a number of rules and regulations in the self-governing community of free-cyclers that help control greedy antique dealers from just sucking the teat of karma dry. One generally unwritten principle of the movement is that one would not simply lurk on the board and grab stuff up, but that all members would also give.

In many ways, free-cycling offers nothing new. I’ve been dumpster diving since I was in college. I still brake when driving by a pile of promising junk that’s set curbside for trash collection. I went through an e-bay phase, and I’m a life-long garage sale junkie. I think I’ll get a tattoo of “One Man’s Trash…” Hand-me-downs abound in large families, and parents have passed down their cast offs since we were Neanderthals.

Even though it’s not new, it broadens horizons. Maybe no one in your family wants your old 19 foot fiberglass boat hull. Maybe you’ve left your tall metal rooster vase curb-side for three weeks, and no one has taken it yet. You need a bigger community, a broader sphere of influence. Bulletin boards broaden your reach to the whole literate world, but only if they come by your board and read it. At a free-cycling site, people are eagerly reading. In the Wichita area, one of our local groups has 7,388 members.

Here’s an added bonus of Freecycling: You’ve had a hankering for some Slim Whitman LP’s, but no one you know has anything like it to give you, even if you were to ask. Freecycling allows you to post requests for those things you may be wanting as well as those you are wanting to be rid of.

I’ve seen all the above and much more posted on the free-cycling sites just in the last week. I’ve even gotten a fine couch through freecyling for my nieces who just moved out on their own. I’ve read of hot tubs, lap-tops, and baseball cards, of cloth diapers and entire garage sale leftovers—all posted by like-minded people who want to unload the old, declutter their homes, and make someone else’s day. Best of all, it’s entirely free, from membership to posting to pickups. Check it out!