26/02/2013 - Permalink

Sign up for Freegle

Related topics: Community

Shropshire Council is encouraging residents to sign up to Freegle – a grass roots movement that is helping to reduce waste.   There are over one million Freegle members online in 366 groups all over the UK including right here in Shropshire using the www.freegle.org.uk website to help reduce waste.

In Shropshire alone there are 17,000 people signed up to Freegle, advertising stuff for free and keeping waste out of landfill in the process.  In fact, they kept over seven tonnes of items out of landfill in the last month alone.

Freegle (short for freely given, locally, easily) is a not-for-profit community website run with local volunteers from Shropshire to allow you to get rid of unwanted items.  You simply advertise stuff as free to a good home and people will email you and arrange to come and collect it for free.  This grassroots and entirely non-profit movement means people are giving (and getting) stuff for free all over Shropshire, with specific groups for Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Market Drayton, Ludlow, Telford, Bishop’s Castle and beyond.

So if you’re having a clear out and planning on hiring a skip or throwing something away?  Please offer your reusable items to Freegle members instead, and keep it out of landfill. 

You can advertise anything you like for free, from old furniture to car parts and old toys, soil and rubble to old kitchen units, literally anything and everything – including the kitchen sink.  So why not save yourself a trip to the tip and just give it away, free, locally and easily via www.freegle.org.uk.

Mike Owen, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member with responsibilty for waste management, said:

“It is easy to join Freegle.  If you have computer access and an email address just go to www.freegle.org.uk and sign up, and you can immediately start advertising items for free and viewing the wide range of things being offered for free by others.  Freegle fosters community spirit and volunteering, helps those for whom money is tight, and reduces the burden on local council taxpayers of paying for waste to go landfill.”