Edit: not even 10 minutes after posting, I’ve got 7 replies for my Samsung monitor below. Its gone!
Today I’m kicking off what I hope will be a long-ish series of blog posts on how anyone can be “green” without requiring big changes to their lifestyles or habits. My goal is to minimize preachy-ness and maximize “do-ability.” Here’s the first, enjoy.
Use Kijiji to keep stuff out of landfills.
Executive Summary
Someone out there wants your cast offs, and Kijiji is a great way to connect the dots locally. Instead of throwing out or recycling old electronics, old magazines, worn out clothes, or whatever, post it on Kijiji for free.
Someone will want it, and will come and get it. Because its local, its fast and doesn’t require shipping. It takes an instant, and keeps whatever you’re getting rid of out of the land fill and in circulation.
Where Did This Idea Come From?
If you don’t believe my assertion that someone wants whatever you’re getting rid of, consider this example.
This past summer, both my weedeater and leafblower died (the weedeater in spectacular fashion, glowing cherry red and smoking). These are pretty inexpensive appliances that could not be repaired economically. I googled around to see if there was a “dead appliance drop off” – but couldn’t find anything. I checked with Home Depot to see if they’d send things back to the manufacturer to be refurbished – no dice. At the end of the day, the only option that I could figure out was to put them in the trash, which felt pretty wrong.
So, I figured that someone out there could use these for spare parts, an art installation, or fix them up. I rifled them up on Kijiji in about 30 seconds – just a single line of text describing the two very dead yard tools, and a price of “free.” Within half an hour, I had 9 emails. After a quick phone call, a dude in minivan from in my neighborhood pulled up and took them off my hands. He wanted them because he was taking a course in small engine repair, and needed broken things to fix – perfect.
How Do I Do It?
- Go to http://kijiji.ca. Note the “.ca” – the .com goes to eBay classifieds for the United States.
- Once you’re at Kijiji.ca, its going to ask where you are. Click your province and city.
- Once you’ve selected your location, hit “post a classified ad” immediately under the Kijiji logo. Pick a category, and on the next page, enter some information about the item, and your done.
- There’s a bunch of different “premium listing” options that you can ignore. If you’re feeling fancy, upload some pictures of whatever it is.
- You don’t need an account to post a listing, but it does speed things up. Kijiji does not make your email address public – it will let buyers send you an email via a web form without letting them know who they’re sending it to. I’ve never been hassled or spammed.
- Phone numbers will be made public if you enter them. I don’t bother entering mine as I prefer the unobtrusiveness of email and privacy that Kijiji adds to it.
- For address, I just put in my postal code.
Here’s an example – I just posted an old monitor that I don’t need. I’ll post back what ends up happening to it.
Samsung 15 inch flat panel LCD monitor
I’m sure there’s lots of other options beyond Kijiji – check out Freecycle, for example (though the site appeared to be down or at least painfully slow as of today, and is more complicated to make use of than Kijiji).
Anyway – there you have it. A simple way to start off a greener 2011. If you put anything up, post in the comments.
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