A free lunch - what’s the catch?

You never can quite tell how good free stuff will be until it’s in your hands. But you can get tons of it locally with Freecycle.org.

It’s basically an online noticeboard advertsing stuff people want rid of.

The nice thing about Freecycle.org is that it runs without any money changing hands. That’s the main rule, in fact – you can’t charge for the stuff you advertise.

Last week I got rid of a Lexmark printer – it was in perfectly good condition but you had to feed the paper in piece by piece. I advertised it and someone was round to pick it up within the day.

Our editorial genius, internet guru and blagger Will Rankin put out a request for 100 boxes of dried, organic soya. Within a day the boxes were sitting in his living room.

It’s an ideal way of keeping stuff out of landfill – and you can make a few mates on the way.