Happy SMART Day Everyone!
This week is “National Recycling Week” in Australia and in honor of that we thought that it would be great to recommend a website named Freecycle.org. After all, it is good to know that other parts of the planet are encouraging SMART Living just like us, and Freecycle is a excellent way to turn your junk into someone else’s treasure. Instead of throwing it in the trash, Freecycle allows you to post your items, and anyone who wants or needs it can come and pick it up for free. Not only does it keep trash out of our landfills, you get the added benefit of being both giving and generous with your neighbors—and that is very SMART indeed.
Freecycle was started in Tucson, AZ. A guy living there worked for a company that was attempting to provide recycling services for downtown businesses, and transitional employment opportunities to local people who needed help. While collecting recycled items that businesses didn’t need, he watched great things being set on the curb to be thrown out—but rather than trash them, he and others started driving around looking for other people who could re-use the items. Obviously that took a lot of time so eventually they came up with the website that would let others know what was available—and Freecycle.org was hatched.
Now in 85 countries with thousands of local groups representing millions of members, Freecycle is “people helping people and changing the world one gift at a time.” They also claim on their website to be “keeping over 500 tons a day out of landfills! This amounts to five times the height of Mt. Everest in the past year alone.”
Again, not only does Freecycle help reduce trash in a significant way, it helps people and allows us all to share. Freecycle says, “By giving freely with no strings attached, members of The Freecycle Network help instill a sense of generosity of spirit as they strengthen local community ties and promote environmental sustainability and reuse. People from all walks of life have joined together to turn trash into treasure.”
So, this week if you are considering throwing something out that you do not need but someone else can use, just go and see if there is a local Freecycle group near you. The one that is local to where I live “Palm Springs, CA” connects as a group in Yahoo.com. Join it and see what you can “share” that no longer has any value to you. You might find that your junk is just the treasure that one of your neighbors can use. Now that’s SMART!
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” –Buddha
“These are the things I learned (in Kindergarten):
1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don’t hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours….” –Robert Fulghum
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