If you don’t know about your local Freecycle community, you should. Freecycle is an amazing resource, both for obtaining and disposing of items.

The goal of Freecycle is to keep usable items out of the landfill by supporting and encouraging their re-use.

Over the past decade, I have given away hundreds of things via Freecycle. When I’m paring down, I frequently post items on Freecycle so that other people in my community can make use of them. And get this: people come to my house to pick the things up, so I’m also saved the trip of dropping them off. I simply leave whatever I’ve offered outside my front door in a box or a bag, and people come to get the stuff.

When my partner and I combined households, we gave away all of those things that you don’t really need multiples of: our extra set of dishes and silverware, pots and pans, furniture, and so on. I’ve given away outgrown baby clothes and cloth diapers, toys that my boys have outgrown, and car seats that are accident-free and unexpired.

We’ve passed along more than a few gifts that my boys have received that we don’t really want in the house. I’ve also offered quite a few gifts that my partner or I have been given that don’t suit us, or that we simply don’t need.

We’ve given away food that we won’t eat, whether because we realized we have an allergy or sensitivity to the food, or because we bought it for a guest but it wasn’t finished before the guest departed.

Charities are great, and my family has a variety of charities that we support both with money and donated goods. But Freecycle is wonderful in a different way: it circulates items within a particular area. It works like this: I post that I have XYZ available, and then whoever is interested responds that they would like the item. I frequently get multiple responses from people who can use those items (one time I had over 50 people requesting something!). I then choose to whom to offer it — I frequently give it to the first person to respond, and place it outside for the person to pick up. It’s simple and easy.

I’ve also posted for things that we need on Freecycle, and people have been equally generous. For instance, when my son outgrew his running bike, but hadn’t yet grown into the two-wheeler we had for him, I posted looking for an intermediate size bike. Someone responded with a used 16” bike that we could have. The bike has been loved by multiple kids, but it has plenty of life in it and my son happily rides it around our yard. We were also given a great kid-sized life jacket when we needed one.

I love that things circulate within our local community, and get fully used for their entire life.

I encourage you to check out Freecycle.org to find out if there’s a Freecycle community established in your area. If there is, then join it. If not, I encourage you to start one. It’s truly an amazing resource, and a great way to encourage re-use both in your own life and in the lives of others.