Oodle announced today the launch of online “freecycling” communities in 25 cities across the San Francisco Bay Area. Freecycling is a movement to help reduce the flow of waste to landfills by encouraging neighbors to give unwanted but reusable household items to each other instead of throwing them away.
San Francisco has the highest recycling rate in the nation, and the San Francisco Bay Area has long been considered one of the most eco-friendly regions in the country. Oodle’s Marketplace, available on Facebook (apps.facebook.com/marketplace) and Oodle.com, now enables Bay Area residents to join together in a local online community called a FreeCircle where they can offer items to each other, search among available items, or request something specific.
The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average American throws out 1,600 pounds of stuff each year. Mixed in with the trash are reusable items of all sorts — from computers and couches, to old doors and building materials. Oodle’s FreeCircles leverage the largest social network in the world to provide a creative, safe and economical alternative to unnecessary waste.
According to environmental thought leader Paul Hawken, when you give an old couch to a neighbor, you are not only keeping 100 pounds from a landfill, but you are also saving the 3,200 pounds of waste that would have gone into making a new couch.
“Finding a way to reuse items you no longer need, before you start thinking about disposal, is always an environmentally sound choice,” said Barry Monheit, CEO of Earth911.com, which hosts the largest and most accurate recycling directory with more than 1 million ways to recycle and was one of Oodle’s beta test partner at the start of FreeCircles. “Before you throw something away, you should take a minute to post it to your local FreeCircle to let your neighbors know it’s available.”
Recology, which provides recycling services to residential and commercial customers in the San Francisco Bay Area and over 80 municipalities in the West, is organized around the principle of Zero Waste and will promote freecycling to its customers. Recology will also help administer more than a dozen local FreeCircles.
“Oodle’s Marketplace has always promoted reusing items,” said Mark Robins, VP of Community at Oodle. “Today we’ve made the process a lot easier. Once you join your local FreeCircle, you can search for and claim free stuff, get rid things you’re not using, or post a message requesting something that you are looking for. And with the Marketplace mobile app, you can photograph an item directly from your phone and offer it to your neighbors in under a minute.”
Oodle has launched FreeCircles in 25 cities around the San Francisco Bay Area including Palo Alto, Burlingame, and Mountain View. To find your local FreeCircle go to http://facebook.oodle.com/freecircles.
Oodle also introduced tools to help moderators of existing Freecycle, ReUseIt, FullCircles, Freegle, and other freecycling groups on Yahoo! Groups. They can now grow their membership using the new “Promote My Group” feature on Marketplace. This functionality publicizes the group’s listings to local Marketplace users, customers of Recology, and users of Earth911’s directory. Promote My Group is free and takes just a few minutes to set up. To find out more about Promote My Group, go to http://blog.oodle.com/promote-my-group.
"FreeCircles leverages Facebook to more broadly promote my freecycling community," said Srihari Yamanoor, leader of Palo Alto Free, the largest freecycling Yahoo! Group in Palo Alto, CA with over 3,600 members. "I strongly encourage other freecycling moderators to take advantage of this opportunity to fuel the zero-waste movement.”
San Francisco has the highest recycling rate in the nation, and the San Francisco Bay Area has long been considered one of the most eco-friendly regions in the country. Oodle’s Marketplace, available on Facebook (apps.facebook.com/marketplace) and Oodle.com, now enables Bay Area residents to join together in a local online community called a FreeCircle where they can offer items to each other, search among available items, or request something specific.
The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average American throws out 1,600 pounds of stuff each year. Mixed in with the trash are reusable items of all sorts — from computers and couches, to old doors and building materials. Oodle’s FreeCircles leverage the largest social network in the world to provide a creative, safe and economical alternative to unnecessary waste.
According to environmental thought leader Paul Hawken, when you give an old couch to a neighbor, you are not only keeping 100 pounds from a landfill, but you are also saving the 3,200 pounds of waste that would have gone into making a new couch.
“Finding a way to reuse items you no longer need, before you start thinking about disposal, is always an environmentally sound choice,” said Barry Monheit, CEO of Earth911.com, which hosts the largest and most accurate recycling directory with more than 1 million ways to recycle and was one of Oodle’s beta test partner at the start of FreeCircles. “Before you throw something away, you should take a minute to post it to your local FreeCircle to let your neighbors know it’s available.”
Recology, which provides recycling services to residential and commercial customers in the San Francisco Bay Area and over 80 municipalities in the West, is organized around the principle of Zero Waste and will promote freecycling to its customers. Recology will also help administer more than a dozen local FreeCircles.
“Oodle’s Marketplace has always promoted reusing items,” said Mark Robins, VP of Community at Oodle. “Today we’ve made the process a lot easier. Once you join your local FreeCircle, you can search for and claim free stuff, get rid things you’re not using, or post a message requesting something that you are looking for. And with the Marketplace mobile app, you can photograph an item directly from your phone and offer it to your neighbors in under a minute.”
Oodle has launched FreeCircles in 25 cities around the San Francisco Bay Area including Palo Alto, Burlingame, and Mountain View. To find your local FreeCircle go to http://facebook.oodle.com/freecircles.
Oodle also introduced tools to help moderators of existing Freecycle, ReUseIt, FullCircles, Freegle, and other freecycling groups on Yahoo! Groups. They can now grow their membership using the new “Promote My Group” feature on Marketplace. This functionality publicizes the group’s listings to local Marketplace users, customers of Recology, and users of Earth911’s directory. Promote My Group is free and takes just a few minutes to set up. To find out more about Promote My Group, go to http://blog.oodle.com/promote-my-group.
"FreeCircles leverages Facebook to more broadly promote my freecycling community," said Srihari Yamanoor, leader of Palo Alto Free, the largest freecycling Yahoo! Group in Palo Alto, CA with over 3,600 members. "I strongly encourage other freecycling moderators to take advantage of this opportunity to fuel the zero-waste movement.”
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