St Luke, writing the Acts of the Apostles, recorded some words of Jesus were not found either in the gospel he wrote or other three evangels: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

However, I don’t think that precludes receiving also being a blessed thing. Yesterday, I enjoyed both through the mediation of my local Freecycle group. I gave away the hamster habitations (a veritable rodent mansion) that have been taking up space in our cupboards since our last pet died a few years ago. Indirectly in return, I got several bags of ballast and a 19″ computer monitor.

Over the time that I have been a freecycler, I have had plenty of things that I was interested in but didn’t get, a few times where the person I expected to collect didn’t show up (sometimes we have been able sort that out and sometimes I have just had to move onto the next person) and one or two things that nobody seemed to want. On the whole though, it has worked out pretty well, even though I can not put a figure on my net economic “gain” or “loss”.

Overall, I win from having cleared some room and got some useful items; the same goes for others in the network; the environment benefits because there is a little more being re-used and a little less being dumped in landfill – blessings all round.

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