|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
Do not throw away usable Items, Share! |
Current rating: 0 |
by Michael Walcher
Email: solaraycer (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
10 Aug 2002
Modified: 12 Aug 2002 |
|
The basic premise of this post is to begin to change the Thinking in Champaign-Urbana that one should not throw a perfectly usable item away! |
 The basic premise of this post is to begin to change the Thinking in Champaign-Urbana that one should not throw a perfectly usable item away! |
Today I scavenged several more completely usable items and added them to the bag full i found yesterday, but i am writing this in an attempt to begin the process of changing people's mentality toward throwing away usable items.
It should a Taboo act, people should feel uncomfortable about throwing away usable items, i do.
I am just beginning to think in depth about aproaching this in our local community, and have several ideas that could aleviate the problem.
I see many folks just setting the unwanted items on the curb and it does not very long for them to be swiped up for use by someone else.
I would like to meet with folks interested in discussing this huge problem in this campus town.
I know there are other many things we can do if organize around this effort and in the process gain free stuff and prevent things from entering the landfill and prevent more items from being produced and all the side effects from production.
Please email if you are interesting in discussing and possibly working on this issue..
My name is Michael Walcher and you can email me at solaraycer (at) yahoo.com |
|
I agree |
by Nick Berveiler
naberve (nospam) ilstu.edu (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
12 Aug 2002
|
At Illinois State University there are a lot of college kids that will throw away good furniture they consider junk because they have the money to buy brand new, higher quality products. Sometimes people will take usable furniture off the curb before it gets thrown away but that is not always the case, especially couches that may have been puked on or something nasty like that. In my opinion, there are two possible solutions. First try to get these usabale goods cleaned up/repaired if neccesary and given to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Second, and this is a more radical idea that I heard of from a friend of mine in the local labor scene, set up a free store. The idea of a free store being that it is an unoccupied building space in a downtown area that is given to the community for free by the village, it is staffed on a volunteer basis, and all products inside the store are for free. Useable goods can be donated to the free store and anyone who goes to the free store can take those usable goods for their own use for free. The entire store is run at very minimal cost to anyone because there is no rent.
I've never seen a free store before but it makes me think of Abbie Hoffman more than anything else. I haven't read enough about Abbie Hoffman to know if he ever implemented one but I think he has. Watch "Steal This Movie" because there is something like a free store at the beginning being staffed by Abbie Hoffman's character. I'm sure it would take a lot to get this sort of thing going, but in the end it would be worth it. I doubt I'll ever se a free store in Bloomington-Normal, but Urbana-Champaign might be able to somehow pull it off. |
