Freecycle

Found this a few weeks ago-- a good example of the Internet being put to one of its best uses: bringing together people who have something and people who want that something. Like ebay-- but free! It's called FreeCycle and its mission is to:

build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community.

It's a mailing list so you subscribe and then receive lots of messages from people offering stuff. Anything from a five foot stuffed killer whale to a galvanised steel bin and 5 sacks of bay leaves. And some useful stuff too (desks, old computers). There was an article in the Sunday Telegraph on it yesterday, so no doubt there are many more members from the Home Counties, offering old garden heaters and hoping to get new mahogany gearsticks for the Land Rover.
Perhaps a little unfair.

I think MySociety has a similar idea but the difference is that it would be an ebay-style application rather than a mailing list. Might be more scalable, but the mailing list seems to work ok for FreeCycle at the moment.

Anyway, an interesting example of what could be achieved towards reducing waste... and use of ICT in helping to address sustainability... (more on this another time).