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Freegle a service for everyone and everything

Open your mind to Freegle

Is reuse your strategic priority? Research by WRAP has shown that people do not actively seek information about reuse, and rely instead on what they already know or have done in the past. To get serious about encouraging reuse, we need to engage our communities, provide easy-to-use routes for reuse and open up minds to new possibilities.

Freegle is definitely one of those possibilities but we are not new, in fact, we’ve been busy Freegling since 2009!

3 things to know about Freegle...

Freegle is being used more than ever. The pandemic resulted in financial insecurity for many, who have used Freegle to find the things they need. Freegle has provided an important and accessible route for re-homing unwanted items. When people choose to reuse, good things happen. See below for how Freegle recently helped someone to restart their life after a long spell of homelessness.
Freegle is volunteer run and community-led. Everything at Freegle happens because of our amazing network of volunteers. We have around 450, currently.
Freegle is a charity. We are free to use but not free to run. We rely on donations from our users and on sponsorship of our local communities by our council partners.

Find out more about Freegle

"Freegle made restarting my life just a bit easier"

"I've always been trying to salvage goods. When I was a teenager I used to go the the tipping sites and recover stuff. I even learnt electronics so I could fix TV's and radios I found. Most of the time they just needed a fuse that would back then cost a few pennies. I love the new drive and volume of people trying to reduce the waste we produce, the restarters, recyclers, self producers, crafters, up-cyclers, the more the better for us all and nature. But right now its more poignant because after being homeless for a long while I've just got a home again, and being able to collect the things I need just makes the hassle of restarting my life just a bit easier."
From Royal Borough of Greenwich Freegle

No sofa, no bed, no table

Furniture Insecurity, Furniture Poverty and Furniture Destitution, three terms clearly explained by Clare Donovan from End Furniture Poverty in this BBC short film. The report explains the devastating situation that more than two million people in the UK find themselves in - living without at least one essential piece of furniture or major household appliance. If you ever needed a reason to use and promote Freegle, then please take a look.

Living without furniture

Freegle near you

If you’d like to know more about the fantastic, volunteer-led, local Freegle communities that are already operating in your area, take a look at our regional map where you’ll find them listed with details and links. Link to them from your waste prevention pages to help facilitate reuse in your area.

Freegle Communities

Rethink it

A new lease of life for an old, forgotten item. Re-purposing an object for a new use. Re-vamping something to make it desirable once again.

Sometimes we just need a little inspiration to be able to look at something again, in a new way. Our brilliant Facebook page is packed with fun and inspiring ideas for reuse and the information is easy to share to your own community. You’ll find it all here!

Freegle UK Facebook

Better together

There is plenty of reuse already happening but we can do so much more if we work together! We want to work with local authorities to help spread the reuse message even further. Reuse helps communities to become more resilient, benefits the environment and saves councils money in areas such as waste disposal and fly tipping. Get in touch to find out how we can help your community.

Get in touch

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Also this month...

World Environment Day (5 June) This is our moment. We cannot turn back time. But we can grow trees, green our cities, rewild our gardens, change our diets and clean up rivers and coasts. And we can #ChooseToReuse. Join #GenerationRestoration

World Refill Day (16 June) A global public awareness campaign to prevent plastic pollution and help people live with less waste. Together with our planet-protecting partners, and thousands of everyday activists around the world, we’re calling on businesses, brands and governments to choose to reuse and help make single-use plastic a thing of the past.

30 Days Wild (whole month) A challenge to do one wild thing a day throughout the month of June! That’s 30 simple, fun and exciting Random Acts of Wildness.