Sunday, January 29, 2012

Neighborcycling - a Change The World Wednesday Discovery (#ctww)

Take my word for it  -
There's a birdbath in there
which was Neighborcycled

We've all heard of recycling, and I've often talked about "freecycling", but my latest discovery is "Neighborcycling" - moving on usable goods, for which we have no current use, to our neighbors.
This is just a normal part of being neighborly but it depends on reaching out and making contact with the people on our block.
A while back, I was asked the lady a couple of doors down something about gardening, and she mentioned her next task was potting a whole lot of plants. I remembered that I had a huge stack of excess red clay pots. A few minutes later, she had pots, I had an empty space, and the landfill had nothing!
One of my favorite neighborcycles involved the birdbath. Our nearest neighbors had decided that theirs didn't really fit into their yard, and set it on the curb for anyone to pick up. That anyone was me. I'd like to say that I was just looking out for the birdies that provide us with so much amusement, but the fact is, been looking for something to set next to the oil intake in our front yard, because I was always running into it when walking barefoot - ouch! The birdbath was the perfect visual cue to step around.
Neighborcycling is nothing fancier that just getting to know your neighbors, talking on a regular basis and sharing your surplus. This has a whole lot of benefits - fun, friendship and neighborhood security - but if it can also help keep things out of the landfill, why not?
I was moved to write about this in response to the latest Change the World Wednesday Challenge:
"Share ideas on how we can keep stuff out of landfills."
I've been doing CTWW for over a year now, and it's fun. Each week, we get a new challenge to try; don't you love a challenge? The fact that it's good for you and good for our future generations is a bonus!

1 comment:

Argentum Vulgaris said...

Hey rewiin, I never knew there was a 'name' for that. I got neighbourcycled last month. My neighbour bought a new cabinet for the kitchen, the old one got neighbourcycled my way.

AV