Free to a good home

Matt Kwong

• Last Updated: May 23. 2009 1:24AM UAE / May 22. 2009 9:24PM GMT

ABU DHABI // Here’s a great offer: New George Foreman Grill in Khalifa City.

And there’s more: king-sized Ikea bed in Khalidiya. One gas cooker in Mina Port. An electric cooker available downtown.

And could anyone in Musaffah use about 200 coffee filters?

These are some of the free things advertised online in Abu Dhabi’s burgeoning “freeconomy” – a movement of givers in which money never changes hands.

To Susan Toth, 36, the “freegan” philosophy also helps divert waste otherwise destined for the emirate’s landfills.

Ms Toth, a teacher from Seattle, is among the 115 members of the Abu Dhabi chapter of the popular web network Freecycle.org, a kind of free eBay founded in the US.

The site – operating by the adage that one person’s rubbish is another’s treasure – states that its mission is “to build a worldwide gifting movement” while easing the burden on dumpsites.

“It’s one less item to be created and built and consumed,” Ms Toth said. “If you don’t want to deal with moving or disposing of it yourself, you don’t have to worry. There are a lot of people from low-income backgrounds who might love to take it from you.”

Given the mobility of residents, the influx of foreigners, and the country’s large carbon footprint, the UAE seems to be fertile ground for the concept to take off.

“It’s nice that somebody here can benefit from something I don’t need,” Ms Toth said of her own Freecycle experiences in the capital.

Upon arriving in Abu Dhabi in August, Ms Toth purchased a Dh1,200 four-burner gas stove for her flat. She moved soon after to a new villa but found the kitchen too cramped for her cooker.

“The place wasn’t even wired for gas and now I had this cooker just sitting in my living room since November collecting dust.”

So three weeks ago, Ms Toth turned to Freecycle. She made the offer with one stipulation: “This act of Freecycling is meant to benefit the individual consumer – NOT shops that plan to resell it.”

“I didn’t want someone to just pick it up and try and sell it because Freecycle is not about turning a profit,” she said. “It’s about some sort of true personal gain.”

As in most things in life, the quick are the lucky when it comes to Freecycle.

Within hours of Ms Toth’s posting, a salon worker named Claire e-mailed her to arrange a pickup time.

“They were a young Filipino family, with a little boy less than two years old,” Ms Toth recalled. “She showed up to my door with a bag of cookies and said they were currently looking for friends and were hoping to move to their own place and would use the cooker at home. I was just glad to give it to someone who I knew would appreciate it.”

Freecycle, the brainchild of the eco-activist Deron Beal of Arizona, began in 2003 and has since expanded across the globe with, according to its home page, 4,751 groups with more than 6.5 million members.

The Dubai group, which has existed since 2006, has more than 550 members, although it is considered less active than the Abu Dhabi chapter, which has fewer members.

Of course, registration is free.

In other countries, it is not unheard of for members to give away concert tickets or cars. One memorable offer was for “magnets for a time machine”.

Postings from the Abu Dhabi group have ventured into the obscure, with people offering museum boards, business management books, and five packages of American “basket-style” coffee filters.

Sam Pietrus, who put up the ad for coffee filters, explained that her husband went on a short assignment to Kabul and bought coffee filters.

“But then he came home and our coffee-maker died.”

The Canadian HR worker hoped somebody else could make use of them but she never found any takers.

“I just don’t want the waste,” she said. “A lot of people still have perfectly good used items and many people don’t have that network of friends or family to give used stuff to.”

Before Jacqui Binnie left Scotland for Abu Dhabi, the nursery school teacher acquired children’s toys and a mini blackboard to use at the daycare. Once in Abu Dhabi, she signed up for Freecycle to offer her old maternity clothes, a full pack of 72 nappies and a Winnie the Pooh potty.

“My son became potty-trained in April last year and suddenly I was left with a big bag of nappies, so fortunately I managed to Freecycle those,” explained Mrs Binnie, 40.

She added: “It’s frustrating here how it’s such a disposable society and everybody throws things out. There aren’t too many charities and particularly with the economic climate at the moment, there must be some poorer families who could use this stuff.”

As for the children’s potty, that was snatched up by Karin Londt, a South African mother with a two-year-old daughter.

Mrs Londt, who is in her 30s, stumbled upon it while Googling for second-hand baby toys.

“Jacqui put something up and fortunately my baby just started potty training,” Mrs Londt said.

“I e-mailed her and we started chatting about this and that, and she invited me over and mentioned she had some diapers as well.”

In January, Mrs Londt offered a George Foreman Grill she had just bought, after realising her husband had already purchased one.

“I’m notorious for throwing my slips away, so I couldn’t return it,” she said.

A South African Freecycle member just starting work as a nurse was grateful to take it off her hands.

Even the allure of freebies is not absolute. Many offered items are still awaiting good homes.

“People haven’t caught on,” Mrs Londt said. “My friends say, ‘Wow, that actually exists here?’ because there isn’t enough activity at the moment. Now we just need to make more people aware about this. Maybe then the flood of offers will start pouring in.”

mkwong@thenational.ae

Recycling rules

There is, of course, a give-and-take etiquette when using Freecycle. Here are a few of the rules. Flout them and your Freecycle moderator could ban you from the group:

• No offering yourself, your children, or anyone else. Freecycle is not a dating website.

• Keep transactions free, legal and suitable for all ages. That means no explicit material, alcohol, tobacco, weapons or drugs of any kind.

• Be nice. That means good manners. If you are collecting an item, be punctual. And do not expect to receive a freebie unless you are willing to travel to pick it up.

• You may find new homes for pets via Freecycle. But you may not post about pets for breeding purposes on the Abu Dhabi and Dubai sites.

• Remember to stay safe. You may want to arrange to meet in a public place. Be careful about giving out your phone number. Freecycle members use the network at their own risk.

• Do not post the same notice more than once a month. It clutters the virtual market.