Once again, Brighton’s Freecycling community comes up trumps. My decades-old hairdryer starting cutting out recently and a cursory investigation revealed the problem: the flex was splitting at the point where it entered the body of the hairdryer.
While I could probably have picked up a new hairdryer for £15, it seemed a shame to take my old one to the household waste recycling site, when I knew it could be easily mended (though I didn’t have the skills to do it myself). So I posted to Brighton Freecycle Café, a discussion group for Brighton Freecyclers, asking for suggestions for how I could get it mended.
Within two days, someone had messaged me offering to repair it. He picked it up from my house, fixed it and dropped it back off the same day, asking nothing in return. What a star!
Freecycle (and Freegle) are more than ways to find new homes for your unwanted stuff, and source secondhand items you want yourself. They provide access to a community of like-minded people in your area whose members support each other to live low impact lifestyles.
Oh yes – I love Freecycle and have been using it for a couple of years now. I’ve had a bread machine, a printer, and a computer monitor from it, amongst other goodies. I’ve also managed to get rid of a lot of things – a futon, an exercise bike, a hoover … all sorts of stuff that previously would either be cluttering up my house or going to the dump when there’s still a bit of life left in it.
It’s just brilliant. It’s enabled me to find a home for so much stuff that I would have had to throw away otherwise, and I’ve had loads from it too.