The offers in my inbox weren’t promising. Used postage stamps, a Nine West coupon for $10-off-a-$65-purchase, children’s bunkbeds. Still, during a post-quals cleaning frenzy, I thought the Los Angeles Freecycling Network might be the best way to get rid of stuff, fast, without adding to the city dump.

So I took pictures of unused objects lurking in my closet — down to various nails and screws that came from I don’t know where (left) — loaded them up on flickr, and offered them up for free.

LA Freecycle is basically a listserv that connects people who wanna get rid of stuff with people who want that stuff. You sign up to join, pick how you wanna hear about offers (individual emails or digest), then start getting the offers that look like this:

Subj: [LA FreeCycle] OFFER: large poster of Kerouac (La Cienega & Pico)

I have a large poster of Kerouac and Moriarty from City Lights. Still love Kerouac — but the poster’s hue doesn’t go with my room’s.
…. I’m gonna be offering a number of things via freecycle today, so feel free to browse the pics of other things to see if any of those may interest you.

I live near La Cienega and Pico. Please take any or all of them — or I’ll need to look into how they may be recycled.

Thanks :)
Siel

Little did I know how much people really DO want African necklaces that aren’t my style! Got three takers for those before I sent in a TAKEN email to halt other freecyclers. And Michele from Culver City already came by to pick up a hammer, a large backpack, and a brand new flashlight, still in its packaging with batteries. She was nice :)

And Lynette will be taking the bus all the way from Inglewood tomorrow to pick up a phone & answering machine — and the nails and screws.

I am, however, still waiting for takers on a utensil tray, five disposable razors, artificial reeds, and a wood-like board thing left over from when I assembled my desk without looking at the directions.

The desk, by the way, is totally solid. I’m keeping it.

Update, 1/7/07: NY Times gives freecycle some coverage today. I’m still a happy freecycle member — Today I’m giving away a lamp and some unused bridal shower invitations :)

Update, 1/15/07: Okay — freecycle rocks on a local level, but is super idiotic on a corporate level. Check out how freecycle’s making speech less free.

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