Bristol Indymedia is pleased to announce the launch of our Indycycle service.
Indycycle is a way of people re-cycling things they no longer need to people who may have a use for it. It is similar to the ideas of Freecycle.
For example, if you have an old bike you don’t need, rather than throw it out to landfill why not offer it to somebody else who may need it?
Indycycle is a great way of for us to consume less resources, stop things going to landfill and build stronger communities.
The system is based on the ideas of the freecycle movement. However we don’t aim to replace freecycle, but instead use our website to build on the idea and make it even easier to pass your items on.
All items must be offered for free – no exchanges or cash are allowed. The person offering the item gets to clear space without needing to make a journey to the tip while the person taking the item gets something they need for free.
Indycycle allows you to post about an item you don’t want (or are looking for) to the site along with a description, photo of the item and your postcode. This means users can search for and see items they may want but also how far they need to travel to pick it up.
A Bristol Indymedia volunteer said, “We are really excited about the addition to what Indymedia does. We hope it will further build on the many green projects, campaigns and initiatives in the region. We see this project as a natural evolution of what Indymedia does – trying to connect people using democratic forms of media.”
To use the Indycycle system please go to:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/indycycle/index.php
… why re-invent freecycle… not ideologically pure enough??… confused….
Yeah, what’s the deal with that? They say they’re not trying to “compete” with freecycle, but very obviously their gain is freecycle’s loss.
What disturbs me is the ideological side – if I were to contribute to indycycle I’d be supporting indymedia, in all it’s nasty, green-ink, insane-o glory. I don’t want to support indymedia and I don’t think it’s right that people’s access to free stuff should be dependant on their political views.
It does smack of jumping onto a band wagon, if increasing recycling is really the aim then it would much better to put resources into a collaboration with free cycle rather than setting up in competition
+1 on the “what’s the point of cloning Freecycle for the ideologically pure?”
I’ve used Freecycle for a while, and this seems a little dumb to me.
I believe that the motivation for this was to create a web-frontend so that you did not have to get a million emails a day. IMC approached freecycle to see if they wanted to collaborate but they are tied to using yahoogroups.
I would like to donate my unwanted lib dem councillor
This is a brilliant idea and I am glad it’s happening in Bristol 🙂
They’re nothing if not optimistic on Indycycle – I noticed this – “6 pencils, 1 slightly used With rubber on end”. Don’t all rush…..
Heh. Then again… who would want to go to a freecycle donors to pick up some really neat stuff… and find an Indymediac loon grinning back at you :-p
I’ve got a paper clip! Anyone? I’m sure its worth more than the electricity used to post this comment.
What’s the bloody point [in a John Cleese accent] in trying to start a spin-off when there’s already a good thing going? I could be wrong! Let’s see if Indycycle becomes more popular than Freecycle or The Sofa Project?
p.s. I couldn’t agree more with ‘iamabristolbloggertoo’ and ‘chris hut’.