Freecycle.

Today is trash day.

I called around and would not find a regular household waste drop off.  One of the local fire departments does this twice a year, but I wanted them gone NOW, the one large box and two sturdy bags of attractively packaged and nearly universally accepted hazmat.

I live in an urban area with a lot of foot traffic through it.  It is standard practice in the neighborhood to - if you have something to discard - put it out way early the night before.  It'll always be gone in a few hours, the urban ecosystem at work.
And now, with the light lasting a bit longer every day, I was able to get home before dark fell, before the wind blew hard enough to keep people indoors.  I lined up the three containers, and left a Swiffer wet mop leaning against the lamppost.

I had knitting company last night and when I opened to door to the first arrival, one box was gone.  This morning I walked out to my car, past the garbage still waiting for pick up and the empty space where everything sat last night.  Something about this pleases me.  I used sturdy-handled bags, so they'd be easy to carry, and someone came by who saw a need or an opportunity in these bottles and jars - most of them new or nearly so - and took it.

I'm aware the fact that in this, as in so many other things, that it is middle class me who can afford to switch to organic cleaners, that the likely user of the products I left on the sidewalk is poor.  But I hope that whoever he or she is, they find a good use for the stuff, that something about the cleanser windfall makes someone's day a little easier, or budget a little lighter this month, and I'm glad that - imperfect solution though it is - that the stuff isn't going unopened into a landfill somewhere. 

Comments

[anne]

i remember plenty of times when i was a student, and even later, when i still worked in the fashion and theater worlds, that someone else's cast-off or half-used cleaners, clothes or what have you would make a HUGE difference between me paying the light bill or not. it was a necessity to keep my eyes open for opportunity
now, i just call it recycling, though i do it a lot less often.

[dharma]

I {heart} freecycle (www.freecycle.org)

[Kellee]

Two things:

One - I LOVE the urban ecosystem in ways that I cannot begin to express. It is so new to R. that EVERY SINGLE time we have something that he deems 'difficult' to dispose of....say...a piece of perfectly lovely, but not especially stylish furniture.....he get's all bound up in How To Dispose Of Large Unwanted Goods. It always takes me about two weeks to convince him to just put it outside already, and he moans about how it's tacky, etc., and I usually have to make some sort of outrageous bet that it won't even be there in the morning to annoy the neighbors before he'll do it.

I've won a lot of yarn this way. A lot. Sadly, he's not learning his lesson, because I offer OUTRAGEOUS spoils, knowing that I won't ever have to produce.

Two - It's not necessarily just the less financially stable who shop from the sidewalks. *cough*butcher-block-kitchen-table*cough* Mostly, it's opportunists. ;)

[Marcy]

Good solution (gettit?) to the problem, Juno. Well done.

[Jessica]

The same thing works in my neighborhood! Hubby and I usually place a wager (for non monetary rewards) on how soon the item will be gone when we take something to the curb. The last time I bet it would be gone in thirty minutes or less and I won! Another nice aspect of this phenomenon is that one can often find really cool things in the trash - I have a great planter on my back deck I use for herbs that hubby pulled from the trash and most of the wood for my compost bin is also salvaged. I also once found a pair of jeans that way - they were my favorites for years - they fit just right and were flattering as well. I don't know whatever happened to those jeans....

[Silvia]

A very efficient system, and I'm sure appreciated by the donee. I got rid of a couch (that didn't fit into my new apartment's door) just that way in NYC. Works for lots of stuff.

[carrie]

Neat system! It makes me sorry I live in the country... I'm glad you could help someone out. That stuff sitting in a landfill can't be a good thing.

[lanea]

Exxxxxcellent.

[Marlena]

I've gotten rid of a gigantic television and huge dog crate this way. I was surprised by the television, since it was so big and heavy, but mere minutes after we put it on the curb, someone had hauled it off. Interestingly, this method of recycling has only worked when we didn't label the items as free. We put out a desk chair once that had a sign on it saying it was free, and it sat for days. We took the sign off, and it was gone in hours.

[chris]

Hub and I have always called it "trash monkeying", and I love it! Bulky Trash week in my neighborhood is really interesting -- you can start putting things out the Thursday before, and by Monday morning, a lot of what was on the curbs is gone.

This past week was BT, and I put out some shrubs that we dug out of our front flowerbeds . . . on Friday we had the mailbox fixed, and when the brick guys left, a couple of the dug-up shrubs were gone. I hope they can get them to grow!

[Diane]

Ah, the joys of dumpster diving and curb shopping. The next town over only does pickup of large stuff once a year, so it's always entertaining to see what's at the the side of the road.

[kmkat]

I for another salute you. Good job.

[Kate]

I love the idea of being able to do that. As we are preparing for the move to our house I'm finding so much crap to throw out. I would love to yard sale it but don't have the time or energy. Most of it is going to the salvation army but some is beyond salvation army material. I refuse to send it to a landfill, someone could use it! Hmmm... wonder where I can freecycle it??

[Gina]

When it comes to unloading cleansers and such, there is no "best" solution, but I think you did what was best in this case. Good for you!

[claudia]

urban ecosystem.

:)

[loribird]

I remember "dumpster hopping" in the evenings during college - we'd find all sorts of things, useful or sometimes just strange, to fill our apartments, to use in art class projects, to fix up... sofas, a stained-glass kitchen light, a perfectly good mountain bike, old books, glass jars and vases, and once a giant wooden spool that became a coffee table. Good to know people are still putting things on corners, instead of just throwing them out... What you did was a good thing.

[Lise in NJ]

I learned back in my social worker days that cleaning products are a huge budget buster for folks of limited means; that, and menstrual supplies, can't be done without, are comparatively expensive, and always run out at an inconvenient time. This was back before dollar stores, but still. You did a small thing that is probably a huge favor to the recipient.

[sallyjo]

yeah, from whoever; Thank you.

[Laurie]

Very creative!

[Carmen]

Good work! I, too, like that solution. No, it isn't a perfect one, but then, it also isn't a horrible one. Letting these containers fester in a landfill would have been a much less suitable choice. And, you probably made someone's day. Now, that can't be bad...