Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Recycle or Freecycle


New toys for the kids, upgraded BlackBerry or iPod for you, home theater plasma TV for the family. What will you do with the old 'stuff'? Ditto the gifts you hate, like that green alien cookie jar you just got from Aunt Tacky Taste.

Some things can be donated to charity, of course. Instead of putting the rest out with the trash and adding to the landfill, Freecycle it.

Freecycle is an international group whose axiom is that one person's trash is another person's treasure.

No buying or selling involved. Actually, that is strictly prohibited. This is not eBay. No money is exchanged. You give what you don't want to somebody who does, indeed, want it. Simple.

Register with your Zip code to find a Freecycle group near you, post information about what you want to give -- or get -- online, and you avoid the dreaded cycle of buying the same thing over and over. And you are also helping the planet.

There are some 4,000 Freecycle groups around the planet, with a combined total of more than 3 million members. Somebody wants your old BlackBerry.