1. Reuse comes first. The East Grinstead NCT sale for childrens toys, clothes and equipment is on 24th March at Sackville school 1.30 – 3pm. Jumble sales are out of favour it seems but ebay is a great service in this area. I have now moved to the point where I am happy to give second hand toys bought from ebay as presents to other children when I know they have good play value. It has taken me some time to get to this point as though I have always been happy to use anything serviceable for us at home, it seems odd to actually give it to someone else. I think the fact that I have to pay on ebay helps psychologically!
2. Reduce comes second….I’m not sure if Freecycle ideas and ‘give and take’ days fall under reuse or reduce – probably both. I was chatting with Alan Potter, a FR resident who works in ‘rubbish’ and was delighted to hear that as well as assisting develop the FR kerbside pickup, Alan is mulling other possible waste ideas that I too have been talking about and looking into - a ‘zero waste’ challenge project (households challenged to get their landfill destined waste to as near as zero as possible), Freecycle (hurrah, he knows someone thinking of bringing this type of scheme into Forest Row) and even a Share-It scheme where infrequently used items could be shared between scheme members (DIY tools and ice cream makers?). As I have run a cloth nappy loan scheme for a number of years in the
East Grinstead area this all makes perfect sense to me. If any area can test out and run these things, I’m sure Forest Row will.
Please send me your ideas….
