"Buy Nothing" -type groups: building community and helping each other by passing around free stuff

So I’m a huge fan and advocate of groups where people give away things they don’t want anymore. And if it’s cool, I’m just going to rant about them for a bit.

What are they:

So for this, I’m talking about online groups, usually covering a very small geography like a town, where people can either offer up things they don’t want anymore rather than throwing them away, and where people who need things can post a request or In Search Of (ISO) for specific things in case anyone has one they don’t need.

Why they’re good:

They help people find things they need without money changing hands. Whether you’re struggling financially, or just getting something you’d otherwise have spent money on, it makes everyone’s life a little easier.

They connect people to their neighbors. I’ve met hundreds of people from my city over the last few years, some frequently, some just once. My favorite has been getting to know my nextdoor neighbor as we cleaned out his house – the circumstances weren’t great, but for months I saw him every day when I helped him photograph items, find people who wanted them, and give them away. We became pretty good friends through the process, and because he’s the kind of guy who sits on his front porch and talks with anyone who’ll stop, he had an awesome time visiting with everyone who came to get something.

It knocks items out of the “resources extracted → product sold → product used → product thrown away” cycle, at least for a little bit.

I can remember walking around my neighborhood years ago and seeing someone unwrapping brand new tomato trellises (we were also planting at the time), then a few streets over, finding a stack of them leaning against a trash can, and just being struck by the disconnect there. Here was a stack of metal on its way to (hopefully) recycling, while someone else had had to buy the same thing to do the same job brand new. Somewhere steel and other metals had been extracted as ores, transported, smelted, cast into wire, possibly transported again, shaped/welded into a trellis, wrapped in plastic, transported again, bought at a store, and transported again. But because the person throwing them away and the person who needed them were disconnected, one set was going to be transported to the dump while a new one was being set up. It’s a small and kind of silly example, but it happens constantly, with tons of items, just in the waste stream.

I have access to an e-waste bin where companies throw away functional computer monitors, laptops, tablets, mice, cables, adapters, monitor stands, and all kinds of other bits and pieces. I carry great bags of them home and offer them up on my local group. So far, I’ve found interested people (usually tons of them) for each item I’ve brought back. I consider reuse and continued use to be much better than recycling, especially for functional tech, and at the same time, it helps my community, providing devices to people who need them. (I’ve recently started diverting the working computers and tablets to a local charity helping Ukrainian refugees, many of whom have no computer/device at all – this helps them get on their feet, work on resumes etc).

Then there’s the items that people are holding on to because they don’t want to throw them away, but aren’t using/don’t need. A few years ago I asked if anyone had a digital picture frame, so I could set one up for my grandmother. A lady from my city said she had one sitting in a closet, she’d bought it for her mother but it never got used, and she didn’t want to throw it away still new in its box. I saw an ISO for an Apple computer monitor (an old CRT version) and checked with my neighbor, who I knew had been putting off driving some monitors to the recycling center because of the fees and because they’re heavy. He had the exact model the guy wanted – and the guy was thrilled, because it’s not like they’re making new antique monitors. Every one recycled is that many fewer components available to people who are into collecting and building those machines. Even better, my neighbor and the guy who wanted the monitor appear to have hit it off and are becoming friends.

We’d already filled our apartment with reclaimed/fixed-up furniture, but I’ve recently started making a hobby out of finding furniture on garbage day, refinishing them, and giving them away. My goal has been to never use new-bought materials, and thanks to the lumber, stain, urethane, paint, etc frequently available in my group, I’ve mostly been able to do that.

Finding these groups:

They seem to work best if they’re very local organizations. So far they seem to be mostly set up on facebook, but I’ll be happy to showcase any other examples anyone has. The biggest and probably best organized one I have found is Buy Nothing:

https://buynothingproject.org/find-a-group

I feel like I should mention that there’s been (as in all things that involve groups of people) a good deal of drama within some of these groups, especially under the Buy Nothing name/brand. It generally looks to me like people who want to do good for each other and their communities, but just disagree on the best way to do it, but you may want to look for local alternatives. My favorite groups operate under the name Everything is Free, which appears to be a bit less formally/centrally organized, but because of that, probably a bit harder to find/less organized.

https://www.curbed.com/2023/02/buy-nothing-gifting-with-integrity-drama.html

There are also dedicated websites like freecycle, and the Buy Nothing app – I think there’s some value to setting these things up in the spaces people already occupy, but as someone who has increasingly fled into federated alternatives, I can also understand wanting to disconnect from big social media sites.

5 comments

You don't need an online community to freecycle! Friends and coworkers often have old laptops and monitors lying around and some are also in need of laptops and monitors. I clean them up, do a proper drive wipe, install the OS of choice for that person, and pass them on to their next owner. Anything to prevent working hardware from going to an e-waste bin.

In my experience these efforts are often hampered by a means to transport larger stuff. At least here in Europe where few people have humongous pickup trucks 😅
There are some often not really profit oriented thrift stores that try to fill that gap, but in the end these places to need to recover costs and it ends up not "free" any longer.
- An inability to fit large furniture into my sedan has definitely been a limiting factor on what I've claimed over the years and I don't doubt it has affected others.
  That said, I've seen a lot of clever solutions to moving large items through our group.
  People here are fairly generous with offering their vehicles when they see a discussion where someone can't get an item, especially because of physical limitations. There is also some kind of volunteer service in this town for transportating things for the elderly or disabled, which I sometimes see recommended. U-Haul rental trucks are surprisingly cheap but what's really cool is when people sort of ride-share daisy-chain the thing - they'll coordinate a route between a bunch of people who need to move bulky objects, basically taking turns. We kind of did this once. I had helped a friend build an arcade cabinet, mostly out of salvaged materials, and we rented a truck to move it. At their place we photographed the armchair the arcade cab would be replacing and put it up on the group. By the time the arcade cabinet was set up we had someone interested in the chair, so we loaded it in the truck and drove it to their place on our way back to the rental lot. It's not too uncommon to see someone post that they'll have a truck this day, what do you need moved.
  Often the trade-off for not spending money is time or sweat - time waiting for the thing you need (whether that's a specific dimension of lumber, a type of appliance, or a stack of cinder blocks) to show up on the group, or (for those of us who are able) sweat to move it. My spouse and I have spent many walks lugging some piece of furniture back to our apartment. When I was helping my neighbor clean out we had one lady cross half the city with a wheeled cart planning to drag a filing cabinet home that way (my neighbor insisted on using his hatchback instead, which worked out better for all concerned).
  The groups definitely aren't a full-fleged solution yet - they can't match the convenience of capitalism which will generate the item new, deliver it tomorrow, and replace it if it arrives damaged.
  But that level of convenience is fairly new in human experience, so maybe part of a solarpunk future will have to be paced a little slower or a little less precise. I grew up listening to stories from my grandparents about growing up on farms in the Great Depression, and worked for a brief span at a farm museum where the historical business model appeared to have been "make do" so that might color my thinking.
  In my hobby of making things with as little waste as possible, I'm often accepting tradeoffs. Time spent to find the materials I need rather than just going to the store, warped or cracked boards rather than new, stain found on garbage day rather than a shade I picked out of a rainbow of swatches. I like the addition challenge, but I know it's not for everyone. I think figuring out how to make it more palatable is probably one of my long term goals
- In my town you can borrow a cargo bike - for free! (https://flotte-berlin.de/)

Just wanted to add some more thoughts, this time about changes in thinking I've noticed after a couple years of using these groups.
The first is that it's been awesome at helping me let go of stuff I've been holding on to in case I need it. Part of that is just the fact that I was keeping stuff so it wouldn't get thrown away, but the bigger part is the confidence that if I let go of something I can replace it if I need it.
It works something like this: I'll find a piece of furniture on trash day, or get it off my local EIF page. Maybe an exercise bike, or an ergonomic kneeling chair for example. I'll use it for a bit, but maybe not enough. Someone else posts an ISO looking for one, and I know I can pass it on to them because if it turns out I need the thing, I can get another one the same way. It's almost a bit of a post-scarcity feeling, like you have the items that are individually significant because they're sentimental, they have special memories attached, or were a gift, or passed to you by a relative etc. And you have everything else, that you're just kind of using for the moment. It's surprisingly freeing. I especially like doing this for building supplies (wood, paint, stain, etc). I'll grab stuff to keep it out of the landfill, or even with a specific project in mind. But if I still have it when someone needs one, (it takes me a long time to get to some projects) then I feel safe to pass it to them knowing I can get more.
The second thing is that it's helped me break out of the mindset of seeing other people as a resource to exploit. That sounds harsh, but I think it's very much the default in our society. I notice this most when I talk to friends or relatives about something I gave away and they mention that I should have sold it. I'm lucky enough to be in an okay place financially - not enough for my big goals, but enough at least so that I feel safe day to day - so I don't have to worry about trying to get paid for everything I do (and I know how big this is - I'm very grateful to be in this place now). These groups really are just people helping each other out. I give stuff into the community, and get different stuff back out, from different people, but it all kind of evens out, and we all benefit. I sometimes find myself giving something to someone who previously helped me, or vice-versa, but we're not trying to track value or debts between specific individuals, it's just a funny surprise to see someone again.
I don't know if this is useful info, I just wanted to put it down here now that I've noticed it.