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“freecycle, in theory is a great idea, however in...”

Written on: 11/11/2010

freecycle, in theory is a great idea, however in practice, it's an absolute pain at times to navigate, its questionable how the moderators work out their responses to freecycle members, the yahoo part of being able to join groups is a headache, Really don't understand why much of this isn't just simplified - most of us don;t have too much spare time. The problem here is that it has become rather snobbish in it's approach, I'm a writer and have spoken to many friends and colleagues who'd prefer to take their unwanted items to the tip, I asked why and the response, ( which i hasten to add is my own too) is that the elitist vibe that freecycle seems to represent is rather bad taste, particularly in our slightly unstable economic times - there is a judgemental element that has formed within the groups which results in time wasting. you simply cannot judge who deserves your unwanted goods on the basis of an ad - put simply if you have stuff to get rid of and really do care about our environment - then give it to whoever replies first and save everyone a great deal of time. now, i have put this to the test for research! i replied to several offers with 2 very different themes going on - one was a direct - is it still available and the other was a lamenting story of hardship - guess which got the most replies - the one that was utter bull.. It's quite tragic that we're still living, in London with snooty social class values. what i found particularly interesting is that when i have collected freecyclers offers having replied in an honest direct fashion, i found them to be delightful, non judgemental and non British (which I am!) In "how to get the best from freecycle" it suggests that you're "nice" ! gosh - we're living in a busy mutlicultural city! this is about reducing land fill, not forging love affairs and friendships! for goodness sake freecyclers ( you know which one's you are) forget the stiff upper lip snoot and run this great venture with a little more integrity and perhaps a little honestly thrown in.