Yesterday, Jana got me a new old mountain bike for free on freecycle. It’s an older model, probably more heavy steel and less of these new-fangled light space-age alloys, but it spent several years as a rental on Catalina (it still has a City of Avalon business license sticker on it). I suppose it has carried many hundreds of touristy posteriors. I rode it back to UCI from Newport Beach, cutting through the campus backwaters and riding down newly graded roads.

Freecycle’s been good to us–Jana’s used the Orange County mailing list to retrieve worms for her vermiculture project from some guy’s roof in Long Beach, our nicest piece of furniture (our dining set that dominates our family/dining/living room) came from someone who was upgrading, and when monitors have gone out, we’ve never had to buy a new one. We’ve also contributed, giving away our old microwave, tons of books, and other stuff.

I like this whole concept, because it’s a positive and cheery way of breaking out of the cycle of wasteful consumerism. We’re avoiding making extra purchases, and keeping a few things out of the landfill a little longer. We also save someone the hassle of trying to transport heavy old stuff. Everybody wins! One wo/man’s trash is most definitely another wo/man’s treasure::