Just GiGoit!
March 19th, 2008 . by Bryan A. McCarty
If you’re like me, you get sick of hearing about how to go green. Everyday there’s companies pushing messages at you about what you should and shouldn’t be doing to go green. With 3000 messages hitting the average person a day and $620 billion spent each year in advertising… that’s a lot of greenness to take in.
Well, when you’re going through the closets and doing your spring-cleaning, don’t toss it, GIGO it! Here’s a company that takes a new approach to recycling - a practical, realistic and effective way to reuse things you don’t need.
Gigo it (’gi-gO it) is a two-word phrase comprised of the words “gigo” and “it”. “Gigo” is pronounced “Gi” as in gift and “go” as in the word go. Gigoit.org is a free online service designed to help people get rid of reusable items by putting them in the hands of people who want them. The catch? There is none. Anyone who post on Gigoit.org is offering the item up for free. The end result keeps usable items out of landfills and in the hands of people who need your stuff. Essentially, it’s an online donation community. You can search by distance from your location or view the most recently added items.
The thing that intrigues me the most is the practicality behind choosing to reuse. How many times have we loaded up the car with junk and taken it to the nearest Goodwill? That might be an okay solution to free up space in your closet, but 12 years later, how much of that stuff has actually made it to the hands of someone that wants it. My guess is, some of it’s still sitting on the shelves of Goodwill… or in the landfill.
Hopefully you read this and think it’s a pretty solid concept. That’s great but honestly, organizations like this only work if you get involved. Maybe you’re not interested in signing up and using the GiGoit.org site, but maybe you could start a similar system in your apartment complex. Why not, right?
If anything, my challenge would be to think before you make that next trip to Goodwill. Maybe you have a neighbor or someone at your school that wants the stuff you’re tossing. Take some time and be proactive - choose to reuse.
::bryan
Bryan,
Thanks for the great read! Articles like yours make us feel great about what we’re trying to build. Look forward to to some bigger and better things from us, we’re just getting started.
Thanks again,
- Peter Schmalfeldt (President of Gigoit.org)
I’ll check that out for sure. Keep up the great work Peter I love anything that brings away from zero sum/distributive into more of a community relationship with those around us.
::a
Peter, thanks for much for checking out KeepGreenGoing. If you ever have any “new” developments with what you guys are doing, let us know… we’d be more than happy to help spread the word.
Thanks for the comment.
::bryan
Hi there,
there is another community that does it. freecycle.org. You just subscribe to a yahoogroups which correspond to your city’s freerecycle. I am registered to 3! It’s great but there is one thing: no picture! and the interface of yahoo group is not so great fo the purpose
[...] use right? We’ll if you haven’t had the chance to sign up for an account on Gigoit.org (see article here), then this solution is for you. Ask your friends to bring over clothes, dishes, CDs, books, movies [...]