Freecycle alternative in Bay Area

[vespito]

Hi all,
I'm brand new to the forums (I just found the blog last week).  I recently signed up with freecycle which has all of 5 members in the bay area.  I was a little surprised at the small number.  Does anyone know of alternatives in SF?  If not, I'm thinking of starting a small version by going through our neighborhood association.

If anyone is wondering - I have CDs, some movie/wii DVD's, an old phone or two, and some luggage I'd like to recycle.  I can always donate some things to the library, but wouldn't mind getting some additional value for the things I'm getting rid of.

I've done the craigslist thing for bigger items, but thought something like freecycle would be good for the above items.

Thanks!

[Left]

donate to salvation army/goodwill and get a tax write off?

I'm not entirely sure what freecycle offers :S the wanted/offer format of it seems like there is a transaction for the items. Is this another local selling site, or a bartering thing. I'm surprised that you only got 5 members :O, 6k members for KC, never knew about it hm.

Could you trade them for store credit if you shop somewhere that takes old games/dvds?

[dragoncar]

This can't possibly be true - is free cycle dead?  I'm hoping bakari will chime in because dude knows how to reuse and repurpose.

[vespito]

Thanks for the replies.  Eyem - I may trade in, but since the value is so low, I'd prefer to have save someone some money on these things.  I may end up going that route anyway - I've been playing the same wii game for years now.

dragoncar - not sure that it's dead.  From what little I know, some people were upset when they moved to yahoo groups, but my info may be a few years old.

[SnackDog]

Craigslist works for everything, even free stuff.  I once put moving boxes on CL for free and people were all over me.  One lady came back twice for boxes and wasn't even planning to move for a year.  I just wanted all the crap out of my garage and it was all gone same day. Great!

[Rebecca Stapler]

Craigslist should get that stuff gone pretty quickly!

Have you looked into Swap A CD (http://www.swapacd.com/index.php?f=books) or Swap a DVD (http://www.swapadvd.com/index.php?f=cds)? (they're somehow affiliated with Paperback Swap, but IDK how successful they are)

[vespito]

Thanks for the replies.  I may just post for free on Craigslist (at least what the library won't take).
Stan - thanks for the links! 

[marblejane]

Hi vespito-

My freecycle group in the Bay Area (Mountain View) has 4,000 members. The Freecycle page for SF proper is defunct pending the site upgrade, but the linked Yahoo! Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SFFN/info) has had 200 posts in the last week, so it looks like it is a highly active group. Best of luck!

[vespito]

Marblejane - Ijust saw this - thanks for the post!!!