I’ve long meant to try Freecycle, a forum set up to facilitate people’s giving things away rather than discarding them. Great idea, and as I move offices and change rooms at home I finally signed up for the western Mass group. Our old slow but working computers are far more popular than I ever dreamed, but I’m hoping the big old office desks will go!

Two lessons:
–There is a site called Freecycle.com (dot com not dot org) that tries to pull traffic
–People use sob stories to get free things that they then sell on eBay–I’m now cynical about the notes about “my dear old granddad who’s writing a book,” after being warned by the forum moderator to let him manage the computer giveaway

I’m trying this to get a new refrigerator now: “I’d love to find a home fridge in reasonable condition, left-opening preferred, to replace my leaking contributor to global warming (it’s ancient and you do *not* want it!). I have two smaller fridges I would be happy to exchange: one a dorm-size and the other about twice that big. I have some other things–office furniture, and perennial plants–that might also appeal to you. I’m in Great Barrington. Thanks.” A good experiment, for me and for the planet.