Many house hold items live a forgotten existence, living in corner cupboards, green garden sheds, lofty lofts and hiding under beds. Their untapped potential is stored away. Bikes longing for the open road, drills driving to dance, microwaves ready for your meals, toys yearning to be tinkered with and sofas wanting to be… sat on.
Many of these objects are thrown out, collected from your curb and prematurely delivered to the rubbish dump of doom never ever to be ridden, held, triggered or perched on again. It’s a sad ending, but as I recently discovered it doesn’t have to be this way.
I turned to existing reuse networks, a grass roots soloution to giving away unwanted items via the web while making people think about their all consuming attitudes.
Reuse groups are great until you realise the whole process of re-gifting is full of barriers removing the fun. Many reuse veterans feel there is much room for improvement and moderators are pulling their hair out.
Firstly it takes hours to sign up to their typically unusable web groups. Once you have finally registered then your inbox constantly gets drip fed offers and wanted items. If you desire to see offers in a neighbouring town or city you have to sign up all over again which means your inbox starts to look like Brisbane, flooded!
Secondly a reuse network can be dangerous if your a vulnerable person as they lack transparency. You may have quickly sniped someone's offer of an Ikea breakfast table and arranged a pick up time. You would however be wise to take whistle just in case they think it is a transaction of another kind.
What's the solution? Realising that these networks were too bogged down in politics to amend these issues I decided to start building my own reuse site called Freelybin. It's an offering that aims to put the usability in reuse, give you control over email notifications and which neighbourhoods you join. Freelybin makes it more clear who you are dealing with and allows you to give first dibbs to local friends when you make an offer. Really it's Social Recycling. Take a look at the site and sign up for an invite for when it rolls out to your area. http://freelybin.com
Many of these objects are thrown out, collected from your curb and prematurely delivered to the rubbish dump of doom never ever to be ridden, held, triggered or perched on again. It’s a sad ending, but as I recently discovered it doesn’t have to be this way.
I turned to existing reuse networks, a grass roots soloution to giving away unwanted items via the web while making people think about their all consuming attitudes.
Reuse groups are great until you realise the whole process of re-gifting is full of barriers removing the fun. Many reuse veterans feel there is much room for improvement and moderators are pulling their hair out.
Firstly it takes hours to sign up to their typically unusable web groups. Once you have finally registered then your inbox constantly gets drip fed offers and wanted items. If you desire to see offers in a neighbouring town or city you have to sign up all over again which means your inbox starts to look like Brisbane, flooded!
Secondly a reuse network can be dangerous if your a vulnerable person as they lack transparency. You may have quickly sniped someone's offer of an Ikea breakfast table and arranged a pick up time. You would however be wise to take whistle just in case they think it is a transaction of another kind.
What's the solution? Realising that these networks were too bogged down in politics to amend these issues I decided to start building my own reuse site called Freelybin. It's an offering that aims to put the usability in reuse, give you control over email notifications and which neighbourhoods you join. Freelybin makes it more clear who you are dealing with and allows you to give first dibbs to local friends when you make an offer. Really it's Social Recycling. Take a look at the site and sign up for an invite for when it rolls out to your area. http://freelybin.com
