Freecycling

Last updated: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 12:01:00 GMT

Another one.

I had thought that selling the remainder of my sellable belongings on eBay would be a pain, but I had also thought that refusing to ship anything, offering items for local pickup only, and being extremely clear about this in the item listings would save me some hassle.

Some hope. I've no idea what planet I was on when that one came to me. Instead of just dealing with illiterate, lazy morons by email, I've now got to meet the buggers. Not only that, but I still got to argue with morons about shipping along the way.

Don't get me wrong: so far most of them have been at least functional, some of them downright pleasant. But I'm dealing with a large sample size, and there are sufficient mouth-breathers crawling out of their caves to come and paw my wares.

We've moved now. We're squeezed into two rooms at my sister's house. It's actually fairly pleasant. Nice to spend time with her, and both she and her man are being very accommodating. It's not forever, and I think we're all painfully aware of that; our imminent departure for foreign shores is not to be spoken of, lest my wife or my sister break into uncontrollable sobbing. They were best of friends before I came along, and dragged them both up the aisle, one the bride, the other the Maid of Honour.

Before the move I spent a solid two days emptying the house of what we could not sell and could not give to charity. An honest estimate would be that I delivered 20m³ of garbage direct to landfill. Where did all that garbage come from? What the hell was I doing clogging up my house with it? At least half of it, I must have loaded onto the van to move it in to the house I've just left!

It was back-breaking work, thoroughly depressing. I'm no tree-hugger, but there's something disgusting about that much trash. Both the wife and I came to the conclusion that we have to stop accruing stuff like this. Such a waste. but I don't know what the solution is.

A lot of the stuff I threw was originally kept "just in case". When I'm working on something, I don't throw out leftovers. My garage was full of cut-offs, spare doors, kilos of bolts, nuts, screws and hinges. If I replace a part and the part I remove is serviceable, I keep it. Sometimes these things do come in handy, but often they don't. While they're in my garage, though, I have access to them, and they're not taking up that much space, eh? What would I do with these leftovers if I didn't keep them? Throw them away?

Same problem, I just don't get to see all of my waste in one great big heap.

I wondered if perhaps I should stop buying stuff that's just good enough. If I need, say, a pressure washer to clean my bike and car, buy a really good one. It'll cost twice as much, but it'll last years and years. I like this idea, of not rushing out and buying shit that'll do the job, but buying only what I know I'll keep, and what I know will last. I think it could pay off, given costs in NZ.

But of course the real answer is to stop consuming. How likely is that?

We donated our spare white goods to a couple of local charities. We both know people who've fallen through the cracks, and to be honest what we weren't using had probably been given to us by relatives and friends. The remaining detritus in our house was split between stuff we could sell and stuff that could truly be useful. We sold the furniture in a job lot for a quarter of what it cost, and arguably half what it was worth, but the convenience of getting rid within the time we had was a greater consideration that the cash. The rest, I picked out what was potentially profitable, the wife did a car-boot and I spent and day listing stuff on eBay. We made something back, and it'll go towards our holiday fund.

When we saw what we were left with, I didn't have the heart or the energy to make another run to the dump, and we'd exhausted local charities with clothes and books. Most of it hadn't sold at the car-boot sale. My sister suggested we Freecycle.

I liked the idea. Non-tree-hugger though I am, it seemed to make sense, and in my own niche, this is how I've got hold of a lot of the strange computers I've owned. If someone can use it, I'm all for it. On the surface, it's a noble and worthy cause. Under the surface perhaps less so.

What with the volume of stuff we had left, we decided to hold an open day, rather than get rid of things individually. It seemed to make sense, and we got a lot of feedback. Mostly, we got feedback from people wanting to reserve things, or offering to do us the great favour of coming round with a van and taking all our stuff away. This, it seemed, was a sign of things to come.

The day arrived and we set out our stalls. Five minutes before we were due to start, nothing but tumbleweeds. Three minutes later, we were mobbed.

There were three kinds of person there. The there were those who were there for something specific. They'd seen the listing and they wanted our fruit bowl. There were those who were curious. They'd seen the listing and they were just there for a browse. Both groups were fairly bashful, surprised by what seemed like our generosity, thankful when they left. They were in the minority

The third group, and by far the largest, were the skip-rats. They turned up en-masse, in cars or with bags, and they pushed each other out of the way to filch as much as they could get their hands on. One guy turned up with a rucksack full of holdalls and proceeded to fill them all. A big lad, but he took so much that he had to stop every 100 metres for a rest as he walked away.

At first, I was embarrassed by this. These people pawing through my stuff, no dignity. Soon I was annoyed by their greed, and wondered how they'd manage to sell what we didn't. It was clear that none of them were taking what they'd use. I'd not have been surprised if they weren't heading straight for the car-boot sale after they left. Then it came to me: they'd sell for next to nothing.

Pride, what a virtue. They'll take the shit I was going to dump, because I'm too good to sell it for pennies. And they'll sell it for pennies, every penny a profit. I'm annoyed at myself for throwing away those pennies, and I'm annoyed at them for taking them. A small part of me is thankful that I value my time, even time spent at leisure with family, such that I don't think four hours selling someone else's junk for a profit of £20 is a worthwhile way to spend it. Another part of me is annoyed that the benevolent gesture I attempted to make was turned to someone else's profit.

I suppose that the end result is the same -- I'd have tipped it, so as long as it stays out of landfill that has to be a good thing. I should be happy.

I feel like a mug.

Never mind: onwards and upwards. We've got two cubic metres of books, tools and photographs to ship to New Zealand, and everything else we own is in the suitcases we're taking with us. In a matter of weeks we'll be flying out to California for a couple of weeks' holiday, visiting old friends, and then on, to a new chapter.

Goodbye, old crap.

Hello, new.