Another free cycle score

Say hello to our swing set, courtesy of a lovely family in our 'burb who no longer wanted it.

My boys are more than happy to give it some love!

On the scrounge again...

It's hard rubbish time again in our area, which means the nature strips are decorated with trash, or treasure, depending on your point of view. 

Last year for the first time I went round purposefully checking out some of these piles and came home with a couple of things, so I thought I'd do the same this year.

Yesterday I went strolling with the kids and brought home a basket:

It should be pretty useful, once I've given it a scrub down, maybe I'll keep it in the car for the farmer's market.

Then today we cruised round for a short while in the car on our way to the library.

Picked up this...

And this fisher price swing seat, which is really too small for my kids but I know they sell on ebay, or at the very least I could freecycle it, rather than it end up in a landfill.

That pole you can see is part of the pole-tennis set I picked up today too, the bottom part of the pole is around somewhere. 

And 3 bats to go with it.

And a little wheelbarrow, good as new.

I also spotted one of those green and yellow bolt-together swing sets that are good for young kids. It was in pieces but on closer inspection there were a few broken bits on it.

So instead, when I got home I put a call out on freecycle for one and got a reply just this evening. Someone in my suburb has one and they want to get rid of it! Woohoo!

(You see, we have school holidays coming up and remembering how unprepared I was last school holidays...the first time I've had both kids home ALL the time....I've been casting about for some things to make our limited outdoor space more enticing.  Mission accomplished.)

On another note, it just about makes me cry to think of the amount of new landfill that will be created  from this hard rubbish collection. And that's just my suburb. You could seriously outfit entire houses from what I've seen out there. Loads of everything and so many big tvs, I'm sure many of them work but they've probably been replaced by their take-up-less-room flat screen cousins.

Hubby suggested I contact the council and ask them to advertise freecycle on their next hard rubbish collection flyer.

 I'm gonna do that and they better have a darn good answer for me if they say no!

One man's trash.....Freecycle it!

Ok, I know it should be one PERSON'S trash, but lets not quibble....

I picked up an item today from a fellow freecycler in my area:

A mini trampoline, all the rage in I-can't-remember-what-year for jumping your jiggly bits into shape.

This fine specimen, clothed as it is in brown vinyl, was lurking in someone's back room, just waiting for the loving attentions of two small energetic boys.

One of whom promptly peed on it. Yes, we're all class here aren't we?

Well, it washed up nicely and now we can finally take back the mini tramp we've had on loan from the toy library for........um..........much too long.

What is Freecycle?

Freecycle is an online group open to all who want to recycle something rather than throw it away.

Generally, you sign up online to a group in your area, then you will begin to receive emails posted to the whole group, about items people have that they want to recycle.

You can also post a Wanted request, which is what I did for the trampoline.

Follow one of the links below to find out more.

Freecycle in Australia

Freecycle in the US

Freecycle in other countries

It's worth doing, especially if you're on a budget and it's a great forum for getting some clutter out of your own home too.