Freecycle

You know that stuff you throw away with a heavy heart, thinking 'I'm sure someone somewhere could make use of this?', says Edward, explaining the concept of Freecycle. "Or the clutter you keep around because it just feels wrong to bin it? That's what it's for. Personally, I've given away a slightly grubby white carpet, various music gizmos, and a frustratingly impossible-to-use soldering gun. That had Edinburgh's surprisingly large sculpting community battling it out for possession."

The system is simple. Sign up to your local Freecycle e-mail group and you're good to go. Edinburgh and Glasgow each have around six thousand members, and with smaller groups sprouting up in the surrounding areas, there's plenty of scope for you to get whatever you're looking for, or find a good home for your cast-offs – and no money changes hands. A cynic might assume that only worthless things of no interest will be offered, but that's not the case. A quick scan of recent posts to Edinburgh's Freecycle group shows that a number of electrical goods, children's clothes and a mini-skateboard are currently up for grabs, plus someone is delighted to have received a yoghurt-maker. Even cars get freecycled – sometimes they need a bit of work, but I recall one member offering a perfectly good car simply because they already had one.

Edward also freecycles from work. "I was pretty surprised to shift 'Slightly knackered green box full of random computer stuff'," he says. "But in today's world, marketing is everything - simply describe it as 'could possibly be used for a tombola designed to make small children cry with disappointment', and it's gone." Plus there always seem to be plenty of geeks queuing up for broken electronic equipment.

Rodti, also of Edinburgh, has been freecycling for about a year: "It really surprises me how kind people can be when I see some of the things that are given away on Freecycle which could be sold for not inconsiderable sums of money. The whole thing builds a wonderful sense of community spirit and is almost certainly incredibly good karma." Pets, too, appear on Freecycle occasionally, and that's how he came into possession of two Chilean squirrels called Gilbert and George. "The proper name for these is 'degu', and they're quite closely related to chinchillas," he explains. "We'd been thinking about getting a pet and these seemed suitably alternative, so I took the kids out to West Lothian to pick them up. They're adorable. They have a really wide range of vocalisations and sing, chitter, warble and 'weep' all the time. It's probably the closest you can get to having a Mogwai from the film 'Gremlins'. Or a real life Furbee, without the constant temptation to throw them very hard at a wall."

Catriona admits that she mostly lurks on the Glasgow list, and is a bit of a Freecycle voyeur – it can be fascinating to check out what people are offering. When giving things away, she awards them on a first come, first served basis. "I have a friend who offered a foot spa and then agonised over every hard luck story from people with sore feet - I'd like to keep it as guilt-free a transaction as possible." Rodti observes "the only down side is that when there's a free lunch to be had there are always a few people - in the extreme minority - who get greedy or desperate. I noticed that when I posted some adverts the same people were replying immediately with very non-specific responses, clearly using some kind of 'auto-reply' to all posts on Freecycle. Most savvy freecyclers these days get around these problems by asking tie-break questions or some really funny requests such as their 'most embarrassing photo'. Some of them have had me in stitches!"

While debates flare up occasionally over whether items are going to the most deserving, it's pointed out that Freecycle was originally started to keep things out of landfill, so it's clearly doing its job. This perspective, however, did not convince some members that Rodger's offer of "chicken pox, Leith" was worthy enough. His whole family had come down with it and "because I didn't get it as a child, I now look like an extra from a horror video," he explained. "All you need to do is bring down your little precious. Let them play with Harvey for about an hour so they get a good exposure then off you go! Please bring biscuits!" An unorthodox offer, certainly, but it did turn out to help a few parents "who had concerns about the illness but were too embarrassed to speak to a doctor."

For many who use Freecycle, it's not just the environmental benefits - it provides a heartening reminder that people can be nice without expecting anything in return. "It's a fantastic way to re-love things that have been sitting at the back of people's cupboards," says Catriona, "and it's easier than hunting through skips."

Sometimes, though, even the veteran freecycler is unable to resist temptation, with so many exciting free things up for grabs every day. "One time I got rather carried away," Edward admits, "and ended up with a 1950s automatic potato peeler. I'm a bit scared of being flayed alive in a potato-related tragedy, and I'm too embarrassed to offer it on the list for a while. Fortunately, nobody will ever know."