freecycle

[siliconmix]

http://www.freecycle.org/ ..please use.

[amspire]

Can you tell us about Freecycle?

I had a look, and it is a pretty annoying site. Perhaps nothing is happening at my local group, so is it anything more then an redirection to Yahoo groups?

I seems pretty dumb if you have to make a freecycle account, but that is completely useless, unless you join the local freecycle yahoo group with a different login. Am I missing something?

Richard

[PStevenson]

I used to love freecycle, one time someone contacted me to offer me 2 giant draw units full of passives and discretes and a massive box full of 4000 series, TTL and various interface ICs (ICL7107, LM3914 etc.) even some old time intel processors. when I got home I could have wept haha and there were quite a few other occasions
so whenever I have surplus things, even if they are worth money I tend to give them away to those who need it.
some lucky bastard took away my 37" widescreen LCD only yesterday as it happens.

so yes use freecycle and don't abuse it by getting the stuff and putting it on eBay, it makes me so angry when I see that happen.

[amspire]

Since freecycle want to keep what they are a big secret, could you actually explain it to us?

Is it a free give-away site. or a free swap site?
Can you ask if I need something for free?
Is it strictly a local thing - are you meant to work through one group only?

I did have a look at their "video" - if that is meant to explain anything, I can only give it a big "fail".

[mikeselectricstuff]

If you're in London, there's a hackable-stuff specific version :
http://www.rehack.org/

In the UK, many former freecycle groups broke away and are now called freegle - apparently the US owners of the freecycle name were being major dicks. 

[amspire]

Mike, both the sites you mention say on the home pages exactly what they are. That is a huge improvement over freecycle!

Rehack even answers this question:

I don't get it. Do I get free stuff or give stuff away or what?

Perfect.

[Mint.]

This seems to be a good idea, but the site is extremely underdeveloped, the search feature isn't the best and I am getting a few errors while I'm on the site.

[Mint.]

In fact let me change my opinion, I had an even better look around and it is complete crap! Seriously the interface is horrible and some groups are on yahoo while others are on free cycle what rubbish this site is!

[joelby]

I think it's mostly just a directory for listing Freecycle groups around the world, many of which will have sprung up independently. Unless you move around a lot, you probably won't have to deal with freecycle.org more than once, if that.

My local one is just a mailing list. It's generally first-in, first-served, so you often need to reply to emails within minutes to secure the things on offer. Being able to search previous offers isn't much good because their lifespan is pretty short.

[siliconmix]

from my own experience i give it thumbs up.the website isn't all that it could be .it's says on their page.it's like ebay without the money.for instance the wife has been giving me earache about an old fireside chair that we don't need don't have use for or space.this chair wouldn't fit in my car so i put it on freecycle.a bloke came this morning and collected it.i've no complaints

[nrgeek]

I have been using freecyle for years.. have givin much more than I have received... the biggest prob with it is that if it.. you about have to be the first person to respond to get anything.. and have had many say they want an item then never show up to get .. then you have to go down the list of responses until you find someone that will show up to get it .. some even ask u to delivery item free too WTF!

There is other US and UK groups like it as well  http://recyclinggroupfinder.com/

Im involved in starting a electronics recycle group http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/electron-recycle/  we just got going ..  would like to see this be a world wide thing ..
Small companies and manufacturers throw tons on old components , control modules out every day .. they just dont have enough volume to get paid by a recycling company to sell them or they just dont know who to contact so they toss in land fill.
We are trying to save as much as we can from being lost in a mountain of household garbage.. since in most places you cant dig through land fills like you could when I was a kid .. that was a big past time in the summers.. I had bicycles every where lol