FREE Giving, Locally, Easily

“Throw Away Future: Tonight”

ITV1 Friday 27th November 2009                                          20:00pm – 20:30pm

Jonathan Maitland continues his ‘living for free’ series, and attempts to renovate a deserving family’s home with discarded furniture. Following his campaign on food waste Jonny Maitland turns his attentions to furniture.

Every year we throw away 10 million bits of furniture and it’s mostly destined for landfill. That’s the equivalent of almost 30,000 pieces of furniture every day.

With landfill due to run out over the next decade, surely it’ s time to stop throwing it away and use some of that furniture again?

This week’s ‘living for free’ challenge is to make-over a family’s home using only furniture, fabrics and paints headed for landfill. Anything considered to be junk by its previous owners will be eligible material for the family’s home make-over. With only one week to source the furniture and one week to re-decorate the whole house….

Freegle groups across the UK already facilitate the passing on of unwanted furniture, for free, to someone local that can re use that furniture, keeping untold discarded goods from landfill (and future incinerators) . Freegle groups local to Brighton in Sussex worked with the production crew to procure furniture and all sorts of household goods that would have otherwise have been dumped at tips, but have instead have found a new home! Watch the show and see how easy it is to re-use someone else’s junk and how good it can look.

The eco interior designer Oliver Heath agreed to take control of the design side of things, using his skills to give all the discarded objects a new lease of life. He is joined by a willing band of Sussex University product design students keen to put their skills to the test and find out more about sustainable living.

The ITV crew enlisted the help of local organisations and groups dedicated to saving stuff from the tip, including GreenCycleSussex, which is the Freegle group serving Brighton and surrounds. There are over 200 Freegle groups across the UK facilitating the re-use of unwanted furniture and in fact anything tangible and legal!

The local group for Paisley is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paisley-Freegle/

Almost 1 million Freegle members already take part in giving away unwanted stuff instead of throwing it away.

As well as having your furniture and unwanted stuff picked up for free and keeping it out of landfill, you can help other local people in the process, be part of the ever-growing free economy and easily enable the free local re-distribution of goods. So it’s not just the environment you help when you join a Freegle group, it’s your own hip pocket and your local community as well-you save the planet and save money at the same time!

Grassroots re-use groups have sprung up all over the world this decade; places online where individuals can offer items for free to those willing to collect. Freegle groups are always run by experienced local moderators who are a great community resource themselves and are passionate about helping locals to find a new home for their unwanted stuff. They are dedicated to ensuring you have a fantastic local group to offer your unwanted stuff on. After watching the show you may be inspired to find a Freegle group close to you and find out all about it!

Have a look here:: http://www.ilovefreegle.org/