Free Goods and Services in London
Freecycle.org is a famous website driven by people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. With more than 7 million members around the world it helps you find what you need for free. To sign up, find your community by entering it into the search box above or by clicking on ‘Browse Groups’ above the search box. Remember, though, that the website runs on charity- to keep it going, you need to give as well as get!
- 7 million members in over 80 countries
- Great variety of offers
- Simple to use website
- Simple search function (just type your area)
- Free membership (you’ll need to register in order to use the service)
- Ability to offer or request an item
- Facebook and Twitter accounts
- ‘Wanted’ section, if you can’t find what you want
Site Pros
- Huge amount of items to choose from, searchable by area
- Free stuff is easily searchably by ‘group’, meaning that you don’t have to trawl through thousands of entries to find things near you- there’s a group almost anywhere
- Taking items from the site is doing some good, as opposed to them being thrown in some landfill- helping the environment as well as yourself
- No chance of being ripped off- everything is free, and you go and collect it yourself- find what you want, get what you want
Site Cons
- Many of the items listed don’t have pictures
- Website is slightly outdated and ugly, though free gift offers are easy to find
- Some customers report that items are always snapped up immediately, with little chance of getting what you want
- Some reports of email spam, so best to a use a secondary email account for the site
- Signing up to a group does require giving details to an unknown ‘moderator’ who decides if you’re right for the group- many would feel uncomfortable with this
Other Tips
- Ability to volunteer in a number of ways, from mod managers to simply helping out your local group
- Ability to donate to keep the site going
- A ‘Wanted’ section- if you can’t find what you want on the site, post a request here, and maybe someone will get back to you!
Overview
For anyone who cares about the environment and has old things to give away, Freecycle.org is definitely worth a try- despite the outdatedness of the website and how quickly things are snapped up when they’re put on the site, there’s enough free stuff on the site to interest anyone looking around for some hidden gems to own- and seeing as how it won’t cost you a penny, you might be very happy with what you come away with.
Go back to Free Goods and Services category to find more websites and organisations offering free goods and services in London.
