Simple Steps to Go Green- 1st Weekly Installment

This is going to be my first of hopefully many segments on simple changes we can make to our own lives to live better in relation to the environment. i will try to get one post done a week, but we will see how long that lasts. :-)

This Week: Freecycle

This week I have been SO excited, because I got into this site called www.freecycle.org. The website it really just a number of yahoo! groups based in local communities, but essentially the idea is to reduce unecessary waste. Once you are a member or your local network, you can post anything you have that you no longer want, and interested people will respond and request the item (and obviously vice versa). If there is anything in particular that you are looking for, you can post that as well, and people will surprisingly come through pretty often. What is amazing about this site is not only its vision and goal, but the qulity of items and members. Even though it seems like people would just post trash they don't want, there are a lot of things worth having, including tv's musical instruments, office furniture, etc. The members themselves are obviously generous people since they are willing to give things away, but I have found in my correspondence so far that they are incredibly courteous and helpful, as well as respectful.

My activity so far (in only 2 days)
Gave away:
-desk chair to an ESL teacher
-broken laptop to an artist looking for broken computers (how perfect, there's actually a lot of people looking for broken stuff)

Received:
-full record collections from TWO different people

anyways, this is my favourite website right now, I HIGHLY recommend you check it out, especially if you are looking to get something and need to save a few bucks, or if you want to get rid of some clutter. Enjoy.