Recycling via the Internet

(From the Wallingford Herald, Jan 2006)

A NEW green recycling group devoted to using the Internet to keep things out of landfill sites has been set up at Wallingford.

Currently, it has only 24 members, but organiser David Cross is certain the idea will take off.

Mr Cross, 48, a gardener from Ilges Lane, Cholsey, set up the Wallingford branch of Freecycle last month.

He said: "We use the Internet to post items which people want to recycle rather than throw away, and it is used to exchange things which other people have posted.

"It's a bit like e-Bay except that everything posted on the website must be free. There is no question of money changing hands.

"The whole idea is to keep stuff out of landfill sites. It backs up the ideas of Sustainable Wallingford, which does such good work with its swap shops and collection days saving things from landfill by recycling them."

The Internet idea was launched in Tucson, Arizona, by people determined to stop the dumping that went on in the state's deserts.

There are other branches in Oxfordshire covering Oxford, Banbury, Cherwell Valley, Chipping Norton, Henley, Witney and the Vale of White Horse, involving about 4,000 people in the county.

People can join the Wallingford group via the www.freecycle.org  website.