Welcome to Penrith and Eden District Freegle - reuse, community events listings and more! Check out our forthcoming events.
Here's our recent blogposts...
Freegle volunteer Chris gives his cardigan a trendy elbow patch - OK he darns a hole as best he can! And out of the blue, has to fix the downstairs loo.
And have a look at a video of many things that have been Freegled during 2016. What can you do to save the world's resources in 2017 - apart from using Freegle of course!
Freegle volunteer Elaine explains how to make pompoms from left over wool. Really small pompoms can be made with little more than wool, and a table fork!
Make a lot of small Pompoms in various colours, leaving a long tail of yarn after they have been tied off. Then fasten the pompoms to a long length of cord or string - or crochet the tails into long chain. Hang the chain on your tree or around the house or on your head!
Make a heartfelt gift this Christmas by knitting for your loved one - anything from a jumper to an outfit for their favourite toy. And it's fun to do as well!
Meet the Freegle bookcase! This is inside the Penrith Devonshire Arcade near the library entrance. Please put any small things there that you don't need for anyone to take eg books, DVDs or small toys. The bookcase is also a drop-off point for items promised to other Freeglers.
Local Freegler Helen Cooper says, "LOVE our Freegle bookcase - we have found it really handy to be able to pass on usable items using the bookcase and we have also managed to pick up a couple of books and tractor magazines for our little boy - which will be recycled back to the bookcase once finished ?. It is a fantastic idea ? ?
Making your own Christmas decorations is fun and cheap - and a great way for the kids to help out. You can make paper chains and loads of things to go on the tree - and home made cards. And nearer the time you can make home made wrapping for presents and even bake a present!
Freegle moderator Elaine is a dab hand at making things. Follow Elaine's instructions to make some splendid airy baubles to hang on a Christmas tree. All you'll need is some balloons, PVA glue and some absorbent string, yarn or raffia.
Tell us your best tip for reusing or recycling things and you could win a free book of Waste Not Want Not ideas, kindly donated by Recycle for Cumbria.
Freegle is in the running to win a competition being run by eBay to find their members favourite charity.
You don't have to make a donation or buy or sell you just have to click on a button and make Freegle a favourite charity in eBay and Freegle could win as much as £7000. Money that would help Freegle with its running costs. Remember Freegle is free to use, but not to run. Freegle survives on donations and opportunities like this.
It's always exciting looking forward to the next Freegle Give and Take - everything from a bath to the Complete Book of Farting. Can you work out what this is on the right?
I've learnt not to panic as it usually works out just fine: there will be enough people to help out, there will be enough stuff dropped off, people will take most of it away again and I do have a means of coping with anything left over. The weather often seems to be OK, but I can't guarantee that – anyway, we're inside at Shap on Saturday – sunshine and showers are forecast.
It's now Recycle Week 2016: from 12-18 September – a good spur to remember to recycle what you can when you've finished using it, if it cannot be repaired, reused or upcycled.
Plastic is an amazingly useful material but we are squandering it on trivial things. There are efforts already looking at Landfill Mining and Reclamation to make use of what we've thrown out before. One eventual ideal for the “circular economy” is that materials such as plastic are constantly in use and only need a little topping up from raw materials.
What's the best way of making best use of our resources? Sharing things so that we each don't need to own one makes sense, both in terms of reducing the number of things that are made and reducing the overall cost for those involved. With shared things, perhaps a better quality and longer lasting item can be bought – and which could be repaired rather than recycled or thrown away when broken.
