I love Freecycling.
It really doesn't make a ton of sense monetarily -- a lot of the stuff I have could be sold for small or medium amounts of money (someone told me the Time Machine could pull $30 on eBay), and even the stuff that's not worth selling could be used as a tax deduction if I donated it. I do, in fact, frequently donate boxes (and boxes! and bags! and more bags!) of stuff to Big Brother/Big Sister and Salvation Army.
But selling stuff is a pain. It takes more time than giving it away, because (reasonably so) people who buy things want to take greater care to make sure they are getting the thing they want, and they want it quickly and on their terms. My time is valuable enough that going through that just isn't worth it. But more importantly, it just doesn't suit me to worry over whether an item is worth $5 or $7, whether shipping costs should cover the cost of packaging, etc.
And donating leaves me feeling unsatisfied. I donate or recycle because I don't want more stuff to end up in landfills...because making more new stuff uses precious resources...and as a small, quixotic jab at the consumer culture that encourages people to buy more MORE by making things cheap and disposable. But I don't know what happens to the stuff I donate; I know they sell it to raise money...but do they cull out the most desirable items and toss the rest in a landfill, thereby defeating the entire purpose of me not just throwing it away to begin with?
But...Freecycling is also its own kind of PITA. People are shockingly picky about stuff they are getting for free. :-) And on the flip side, people tend to not taking it seriously...claiming items and never showing up to get them. And there's scheduling and exchanging email and answering questions....
So I tend to freecycle larger items, ones that are too big for BBBS pickup or Salvation Army drop boxes...and also ones that are attractive enough that people will travel whatever distance to come get them.
Yesterday I tried tossing up some smaller items up. The response has been good, but I'm not yet sure whether it feels worth it to go through the trouble for items I could as easily toss in a box and leave on the front stoop for some charity to come get.
On the plus side, people who freecycle are generally very friendly and nice (if not always 100% reliable). Today I met: a man who fixes up bicycles for charity and for neighborhood kids who can't afford them (he took all our four fixer bikes); a woman who works for a community theater in a nearby town, who took a coffee table to use as a prop; and another woman who happily chatted with me for 15 minutes about co-housing before taking my garment rack.
Now I'm wondering if it is worth it to Freecycle books. We have SOOOOO many; I'm dreading the idea of typing them all in, sorting them, etc.
