Thursday, August 06, 2009 The freecycling phenomenon fail

I enjoyed my first freecycling experience the other night. Julia and Richard now have three wonderful bookcases for their new flat in London, and I have a lot of extra space in my lounge.

I was amazed at how quick it was to get responses. With over 14,000 people registered to freecycle in my area alone, I had 10 takers within a few hours. And they all explained why they wanted my bookcases (for books, mainly). How frightfully civilised.

But the movement is making a mistake by allowing people to 'want' stuff, rather than just 'offer' it.

Check this out, from this morning's email digests:



And...



C'mon people. Let's think this through a bit, shall we?

And for all of you worrying, don't - I've emailed them both and put them in touch. Someone's got to be the intellectual glue that holds all this together.