Living in San Francisco, I know that it's entirely possible to come across enough free furniture to outfit an apartment when walking six blocks on any given weekend. Give Your Stuff Away Day wants to take that idea a step further by encouraging people to go through their homes to find usable items they no longer need and place them on the curb. Essentially, the day could be a giant free scavenging community event giving everyone the opportunity to take home some free stuff.
Created by Mike Morone, the motivation behind Give Your Stuff Away Day is to help shrink landfills, generate a sense of community and reduce household clutter. According to Morone, the idea goes something like this:
A person typically hangs onto an old bike after buying a new one. As years go by, and the bike’s tires deflate and it gets rusty and dusty, the owner finally gets tired of storing the bike. So, he or she tosses it out on the morning of garbage day. A few short hours later, it gets picked up, and in a few days, it’s in a landfill. The bike was only on the curb for a short time. Those few people who passed it were on their way to work, and no “scavengers” stopped to pick it up.
With Give Your Stuff Away Day, the bike –along with millions of other items –goes to the curb on Saturday morning (even Friday evening). Then it’s on display for all day Saturday and Sunday, with perhaps hundreds of potential scavengers getting a look at it. Still it might sit as Monday and Tuesday rolls around. By the time garbage day arrives (let’s say Wednesday), the bike has been on display for a full four days. Maybe 1,000 people drove by, but all thought it was junk. On Wednesday morning, person #1,001 drives by and happily grabs the bike. He or she fixes it up, and the bike gets a second life and is saved from the landfill.
Mike concedes that sidewalks could get a little messy for a few days, but also wants to remind people to take back their unwanted items should no one pick them up.
With spring cleaning in full swing and the Spring Cure just ending, this seems like the perfect opportunity to get rid of some unwanted items that might be perfect for someone else's home.
Give Your Stuff Away Day has been picking up steam and has received quite a bit of both local and national press. Have you heard of any events in your community? Will you be participating?
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I think this is a FABULOUS idea...how fun to out some items you don't want out in the morning then go bop around town hoping to find treasure! I just don't see such a large in land city like Phoenix where I live to catch on a quickly as say San Fran or NY...but I can keep my fingers crossed ;)
www.ModernManorStore.com
While I think this is an interesting idea... it is not technically legal to just "put stuff on your curb" and hope it will get picked up... even if you do plan on taking the leftovers back in in a few days. When I lived in SF and was moving out and getting rid of lots of stuff, I left a lot of things on the curb (in a very high traffic area in the Castro) and I got in a lot of trouble with neighbors, real estate agents, etc for 1. not having a permit to do it and 2. for making the neighborhood "look bad". Now that I am a home owner, I can appreciate this sentiment and I would warn folks against doing this without in the least letting your neighbors know you are participating in this event. The lax guidelines around "Give Your Stuff Away Day" could mean a *disaster* for a lot of homeowners and neighborhoods.
just sayin'
One nice option, not just for May 15th, that I believe I found from a previous ApartmentTherapy post is Freecycle. They have user groups for all different regions. I'm moving soon and I had boxes of comic books that I didn't want to keep moving with me, so I posted them to my local freecycle board and I got about 20 people who offered to take them off my hands.
while I think giving things away regularly (or on a special day) is a FABULOUS idea that should be encourage....I have to admit I hate seeing junk on the sidewalk...it's tacky, can be hazardous, and costs the city in cleanup when no one takes it.
I think we should encourage a day when everyone finds some free things to put up on craigslist, or maybe organize a "swap" board for your apartment complex - putting up photos and descriptions of things you'd happily give to a neighbor (and get to meet them in the process)!
I might participate the 'craigslist' way - or check out this "freecycle" website someone else mentioned!
Freecycle rocks. One man's trash...
Why not just list things on the "free" area (subsection of "For Sale") on Craigslist?
Chevy Chase MD, a suburb of DC, does a version of this twice a year. It's called Trash-to-Treasure, and the city promotes it. Folks put stuff out on Friday and Saturday, and whatever is left is collected by the city on Monday morning.
Because it's a wealthy neighborhood, people know it's going to be good, and they come from miles around to pick through the stuff.
The town also has a donations event in the community center parking lot, with an electrical recycler, a charity that collects clothes, one that collects books, one that collects furniture, etc. That way, people who want to donate for a tax deduction can do that too.
I work for Community Forklift, the DC area's thrift store for home improvement, so we were invited to collect building materials and lawn & garden stuff. Now that we know about it, next fall we will participate in the donation event AND cruise around in our big truck on Sunday night to pickup stuff.
I wish every town did this sort of thing a few times a year. If it's well advertised by the town, if they allow charities to come in and cruise around, and if they conclude it by sending out their bulk waste trucks...well, it really works out well for everyone. It's not worthwhile for us to send our truck out for regular bulk-trash weeks - we never know what's going to be there. But if there is a special event like this, we know it will be worth our time and labor. Plus I suspect that the city saves money in landfill costs and such.
In Madison, WI this has been common practice...and on May 15.... for as long as I can remember. Mainly people put out mattresses and couches because all the UW college kids are moving and so it's like a giant swap day, plus then they don't have to move their big pieces if they're not attached. Once some of my friends drove like 45 minutes to go scavenge mattresses for some project they were doing because the practice is that well known, and we were in high school then even.
It's just a few days right? ...
In Iowa City almost all leases end on July 31. And everyone moves and dumps they unwanted goods on the curb. I got some good things this way. But it got so unmanageble a while back that the city organized a centralized location for everyone to bring things.
I live in a large apartment building and we have a recycling table in the laundry, where people leave unwanted books, magazines, household items, etc, so that others can take them and make use of them. It's a great system.
In Fresno we have "big pick up" days once a year when you can get rid of big items. People put their "junk" out at the curb a few days before the trucks roll through, and people can pick up items they want. Usually, by the day the trucks roll, most of my items are gone. This is also when we do our big pruning jobs and put out limbs and trimmings.
freecycle is great!