Reduce, Reuse, Recycle ala Maman Poulet
Clearing up the kitchen presses today to see what I have and have not and what can be dumped as never going to be used. We are moving house in a few weeks and its time to unload, freecycle, cheapcycle, recycle and donate.
When it comes to the food press, there was very little to throw out, everything seemed to be well within its use by date. There was coconut milk, tomatoes, tuna, pineapple (I never eat tinned pineapple – how did that end up in there?) and rice (5 different kinds!) and enough pasta to feed an army. (Ok not the 2,500 lads and ladies strutting their stuff down O’Connell Street maybe but plenty to last a few months if I ever ate any of the stuff)
And then there are the pulses and seeds - lentils, aduki beans, more lentils, haricot beans, chickpeas, lots of Indian spices, bay leaves, vinegars and packets of asian sauce mixes that I picked up from the Asian market thinking ‘I’ll experiment with that some time’! Lots of crackers/biscuits for cheese and organic stockcubes (ok I try to make myself feel better about using organic stock cubes rather than making my own stock).
Just put up my first things on Leinster-Freecycle, a coffee maker (never out of its box) and a footspa (used once) It’s a email list where you giveaway stuff you don’t need. Amazing the things that people have to giveaway before they end up in landfill. I am on the look out for an office desk and a decent chair and a TV at some stage so I hope it will come via freecycle. Recently someone started up Cheapcycle Ireland. This is where you advertise stuff you want to sell cheaply.
The next job is the bookshelves. I am determined not to bring books that I am not emotionally attached to. The cookery books of course will be coming with me but there is an awful lot of fiction and academia that will be heading to Oxfambooks in the next few weeks. I brought a few bags into them a few weeks ago and there is more on the way there soon or else I will have no room to breathe wherever I end up.
When it comes to the food press, there was very little to throw out, everything seemed to be well within its use by date. There was coconut milk, tomatoes, tuna, pineapple (I never eat tinned pineapple – how did that end up in there?) and rice (5 different kinds!) and enough pasta to feed an army. (Ok not the 2,500 lads and ladies strutting their stuff down O’Connell Street maybe but plenty to last a few months if I ever ate any of the stuff)
And then there are the pulses and seeds - lentils, aduki beans, more lentils, haricot beans, chickpeas, lots of Indian spices, bay leaves, vinegars and packets of asian sauce mixes that I picked up from the Asian market thinking ‘I’ll experiment with that some time’! Lots of crackers/biscuits for cheese and organic stockcubes (ok I try to make myself feel better about using organic stock cubes rather than making my own stock).
Just put up my first things on Leinster-Freecycle, a coffee maker (never out of its box) and a footspa (used once) It’s a email list where you giveaway stuff you don’t need. Amazing the things that people have to giveaway before they end up in landfill. I am on the look out for an office desk and a decent chair and a TV at some stage so I hope it will come via freecycle. Recently someone started up Cheapcycle Ireland. This is where you advertise stuff you want to sell cheaply.
The next job is the bookshelves. I am determined not to bring books that I am not emotionally attached to. The cookery books of course will be coming with me but there is an awful lot of fiction and academia that will be heading to Oxfambooks in the next few weeks. I brought a few bags into them a few weeks ago and there is more on the way there soon or else I will have no room to breathe wherever I end up.
posted by Maman Poulet @ 4/16/2006 07:02:00 p.m.
4 Comments:
freecycle is the business - though it can get seriously addictive if you're on broadband and supposed to be working. Here there are separate websites for Manhattan, Brooklyn and the other boroughs, and when we first came here I couldn't believe the things that were coming up - enough to furnish a whole house, plus laptops, paintings, and random junk which, I convinced myself, i really really needed. The fact that, in a city of this size, these sites get up to a hundred new offers a day might give you some sense of how easy it is to get sucked into the 'checking every five minutes' habit.
In the end, I got a few things from freecycle - a 1950s kitchen table which is now our desk, and a portable record player, plus a box of books none of which I've actually read yet. I tried to give away a few things, but people don't usually turn up. It seems that if it's free, the temptation just not to bother becomes all the stronger. Funny, I've found that whenever I have a spare press pass to the theatre as well - at first, my friends couldn't get enough of the freebies, but after a while, the fact that it was free somehow made it a less valuable prospect.
Anyway, good luck with the freecycling!
Suzy, great tip for oxfam books, I have two huge boxes of books looking for a good home. I will give them a ring this week
Hesitant Hack, Yes Freecycle seems great - I got lots of replies to my ads and within 30 minutes of ringing someone who wanted the coffee maker it was collected and the rest is going on Thursday.
Griff - they are lovely people in Oxfambooks and that branch likes all sorts of books - they are not prissy about what you bring.
I'm the founder and now co-mod of LeinsterFreecycle :-). Thanks for using it!!
Post a Comment
<< Home