Freecycle It-

In an effort to simplify before we start a renovation on our house, and to get rid of chemically laden products we had deep in various closets, I made a pile of stuff. It contained old sunscreens, lotions and body washes that were gifts, old shampoos and conditioners, and random products that were obviously not in use.

The box sat in the living room for quite some time, being moved around periodically so no toddler's hands would reach it.

I stared at it often, thinking about my options. I bought some of the products before I knew anything about the chemicals they contain. It seemed like such a waste to my frugal self to simply pour them down the drain and recycle the containers. I mean, some of them were brand new!

But to give them away to friends seemed odd too, because I certainly didn't want my friends to be slathering on phthalates, parabens, and other chemicals. So what to do? People are buying these same goods at Walmart this very minute. And if they want the products, and I have them, I want to limit waste, their output of cash, and transportation costs.

So I put the items on Freecycle. Have you heard of it? You can post anything you don't want on Freecycle, and someone will email you to come and pick it up. You might wonder if anyone would really come and pick up a bag of body products. I had 5 or 6 emails about it the next day, and someone picked it up right away. You do have to join a local Freecycle group to be able to post, but it is easy. You can even post items you are looking for. Who doesn't love free stuff? And of course, keeping usable items (anything, really) out of our landfills helps us all.