Freecycling falling apart
This is a story I had my eyes on, and was trying to research further in the hope of pitching it to a newspaper. But someone has beaten me to it, by writing What went wrong with Freecycle in the UK? for The Ecologist.
The essence is this: Freecycle began life in the US and the concept spread very quickly worldwide. It has been very popular in the UK, with Freecycle groups being set up in most towns here.
Back in the US, the founder(s?) of Freecycle began to treat it more like a business. Instead of promoting freecycling (lower case "f"), they became more concerned with Freecycle (upper case "F") as an organisation. Guidance for UK-based group moderators increasingly felt like instructions to be followed to the letter. If this didn't happen, moderators were unceremoniously kicked out. Andy Swarbrick's Fighting for Freecycling site has a lot more detail.
But just because "Freecycle" has to become a trademark, doesn't mean people can't keep giving unwanted stuff away to their friends and neighbours.
So in the UK, offshoot organisations have sprung up. Freegle seems to be one of the highest-profile at the moment, but there are others. Freegle's about page spells out what happened:
"Most Freegle groups were formerly part of The Freecycle Network. However, progressively since its beginnings, it became evident that Freecycle changed radically under our feet while we were working to continue its success. This created an untenable situation for hundreds of volunteers in the UK. After patient and skilled negotiations with the founder of The Freecycle Network failed, Freegle was formed."
I'm curious to know how many groups have split away from Freecycle, and whether starting new groups has made the ultimate goal - keeping perfectly decent stuff out of landfill - more difficult for ordinary people who don't know whether to sign up to one, or another, or both. It would also be nice to see what Freecycle's founder, Deron Beal, thinks of it all; but he didn't want to speak to The Ecologist though.
