Freecycle, Freegle, Freegive…
A competitor to Freecycle and Freegle called Freegive has sprung up in Birmingham. All are email networks designed to give away rather than throw away unwanted goods.
All use Yahoo Groups for their email lists. Freegle appears to have begun as a result of some arguments about local control of Freecycle groups (Freecycle began in the US), and is now very active in Birmingham. Freegive has been lambasted on the Transition Towns forum – here are a couple of quotes from other parts of the country:-
In my area – the whole of Dorset, UK has a membership of nil (not a good sign)… the Freegive website appears to be coaxing people to either donate money, buy website advertising space and also encourages members to buy new consumer goods at their shop (which seems kinda ironic)!!
Oxford is still actively freecycling – 33,000 members and about 100 posts per day.
No Oxford freegle group at all, altho neighbouring Banbury and Henley have active freegle groups with 5,000 members between them
Oxfordshire freegive group – 4 members and one message posted in May 2009…
We would welcome any discussion or clarification in the comments section below.
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Natalie said:
Do the organisations do the same thing? Surely it would make more sense to combine the efforts into one large supergroup rather two of them competing?
Anna said:
I get free stuff from freegive and the idea is fantastic. http://www.freegive.co.uk