Freecycle founder Deron Beal featured in Time Magazine
by Elizabeth "Bjay" Woolley on Nov. 20, 2009, under Life, TucsonThe global Freecycle phenomenon was born and raised in Tucson, and it’s founder, Deron Beal, is featured in the current issue of Time Magazine. Check it out here.
Started in 2003, they currently have 4,854 groups with 6,737,000 members across the globe. Groups can be found from Andorra to Zambia.
If you have been living in a cave and are not aware of what the Freecycle craze is. Their site (freecycle.org) says, “The Freecycle Network™ is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns…When you want to find a new home for something — whether it’s a chair, a fax machine, piano, or an old door — you simply send an e-mail offering it to members of the local Freecycle group. Or, maybe you’re looking to acquire something yourself. Simply respond to a member’s offer, and you just might get it.”
When I first heard of the Freecycle group here in Tucson years ago, I didn’t quite understand it. To test it out, I posted an offer of 50 empty used CD cases. Within minutes I was inundated with takers. A couple years later, my sister was living out in the boonies and would be trapped by monsoon floods. At that time, you could post “wanted” items (they have since changed the rules). I posted her problem and quickly was offered an old Pinto that had been converted into a type of swamp vehicle. We didn’t take it (she moved).
According to the article, the site helps to reuse 700 tons of material a day. The Freecycle site claims they have kept material out of landfills equal to “five times the height of Mt. Everest in the past year alone, when stacked in garbage trucks!” That’s no small potatoes.
Are you a Freecycle enthusiast?
