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When we need or want something, our first thought is often, "Where can I buy it?" But what if our first thought was: "I wonder if my neighbors have it?" Buy Nothing groups and free groups are community-rooted solutions for overconsumption and how much overconsumption costs us and the planet.
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Whether you're looking for pots for your plants or you want to give away an old Kindle you don't use, these groups are a great way to realize the resources and generosity of our neighbors.  
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On this Community Voices episode of Second Nature, we're diving into the generous, thrifty, magical world of free groups and Buy Nothing groups to discover new opportunities to connect with community and find new value in our stuff.

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Here are some of the people you'll hear from in this episode:

Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Taylor Barkley, Morgan Gallagher, Diana Holguin, Madeline Streilein, Nick Blocha
• Editing and engineer: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

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Full Transcript

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Katelan (00:00):

Welcome back to Second Nature, a podcast from Commons. At Commons, we know that sustainability is different for everyone. The Commons app helps you find what works for you. And on this show we hear from you, our community, to find out how you're living sustainably in an unsustainable world.

Katelan (00:21):

I joined my local Buy Nothing group about seven or eight years ago and I'm not exaggerating what I say. Being part of this group has completely changed the way that I think about stuff and consumerism. If you've never heard of Buy Nothing Groups, I am truly honored to be the one to introduce you. So the Buy Nothing Project started in 2013 and a Buy Nothing group is basically just a group of people who live in the same neighborhood or city or region. And folks in the group can just post stuff to give away or things that they're looking for. You can give away or ask for nearly anything besides, you know, obvious exceptions. You can ask for stuff to keep, stuff to borrow. You can ask for the gift of time or expertise, but everything is totally free. No money is exchanged, no swaps. There are groups all over the world, many groups are on Facebook, but there's an app too.

Katelan (01:11):

There are also ad hoc, self-started or free cycle groups with the same idea as Buy Nothing Groups. But why are we talking about Buy Nothing groups on a sustainability show? Well, I'm so glad you asked because Overconsumption is one of the main drivers of climate change. We buy so much stuff, our homes are overflowing, our thrift stores are overflowing, our land fills are overflowing. A buy nothing group is a quintessential way to connect with the people and resources in our communities. Instead of giving more money to huge corporations and pulling new resources from the planet, we can get stuff from our communities for free. Instead of adding stuff to landfills, we can give it to our neighbors who really need it. I'm your host Kaitlyn Cunningham and on this Community Voices episode of Second Nature, we are hearing from you to find out what you've given or received from your Buy Nothing groups and hearing those stories that really stuck with you. Without further ado, I'll hand it off to you.

Taylor (02:14):

Hello. Um, my name is Taylor and I'm 28 years old. I live in Marietta, Georgia, which is like a suburb right outside of Atlanta. And a couple things about me. Um, I test video games for a living. Um, in my free time I enjoy dancing, writing, reading lots of romance books and doing any kind of random crafty type stuff. So I joined my first Buy Nothing group back in like May of 2022. Some of my favorite things that I've received from a Buy Nothing group, I've gotten a 50 inch tv, I've gotten furniture from like nightstands and furniture for my cats as well. I got some microwaveable mac and cheese that someone was finished didn't want anymore. Um, so I've gotten like a, a wide range of things. Uh, that's always been pretty fun. I've also enjoyed being able to like request and ask for things like I had some foaming soap tablets but I didn't have any actual dispensers or enough dispensers for all of our bathrooms.

Taylor (03:26):

So I asked if anyone had any empty foaming hand soap bottles and I was able to get a couple of those. I was also able to pick up some wire hangers, um, because I was joining a consignment sale and so I was able to get wire hangers and safety pins from people. And so that was really nice and just being able to like request those things and have people offer them up to me. Some of the things that I've given away, we had an old laptop that we weren't using anymore. Also a Kindle, you know, kitchen items that we're no longer using. We also gave away some monitors. We had some old monitors that we weren't using anymore. I'm always constantly decluttering so as I'm able to get a a decent pile of stuff, I'm able to just kind of declutter different things. I'm able to just give the post those up on the Buy Nothing group um, and people who want them come and get them.

Taylor (04:15):

So I've always kind of appreciated that some of the things that people have requested that I've been able to give and just the gratitude that they express afterwards for things that seem so trivial is always makes me feel kind of good. For example, someone was requesting like they were doing a craft and they wanted those type one of a container that used to hold Tide pods and I had an empty one of those. Also, someone else needed an empty cat litter box 'cause they were gonna make some a chicken coop with it. Um, and I had one of those as well. And so just people being able to come and pick those up or I've also just uh, offered to drop 'em off and when people didn't have a car that day to come pick it up and how excited people like see one lady was saying that her sons were so excited when they saw the Tide pod container 'cause they were able to do their craft that day. So it's always just kind of nice to hear those types of stories and things that I was just gonna probably recycle anyway, being able to go to a different use and be useful for someone else.

Morgan (05:13):

My name's Morgan. I am 33 years old and I live in Hoboken, New Jersey and my background's in environmental engineering but I also have a sustainability Instagram call The Convenient Green. I have been part of a buy nothing group for over six years, so I've given away a lot to my Buy Nothing group. Things that I would never think that people would want get taken like faces. A lot of reusable bags I've given away boxes, old packing material, fabric samples, paint paper, napkins, you name it, people will take it. Things that I've received a lot from my buy Nothing group too. My favorite is definitely my fate Christmas tree that I've now used for the past three years. I've also gotten a ton of workout material. My favorite thing that I just most recently got was fabric dye. I wanna dye some of my clothes. I've never done it before, but I also didn't wanna pay for new dye so this was like fate when it popped up. I was really happy about it. My favorite buy Nothing moments, it's just like people post crazy things and I swear they all get taken. Like the most recent thing I saw posted was half of a mannequin and someone took it. But really my favorite moment is when I really want something but I don't wanna pay for it and it just happens to pop up on my buy nothing group. It's like absolute fate. I love it.

Madeline (06:45):

Hi, my name is Madeline. I am 28. I live in Oakland, California and I am a software engineer for Commons. Couple of things about me. I am living intentionally carless. I enjoy boxing conditioning and uh, my favorite fruit right now is grapefruit. I'm from Durham, North Carolina and I got to live there as an adult after college. And while I lived there I discovered a Facebook group called Bull City Shares that was this wonderful place where people posted things they were trying to get rid of or things they were seeking and folks could comment and do porch pickups. I loved doing this. Um, I remember moving and acquiring utensils and other things like that. It also made the other end of the exchange really fun. If you have things that you no longer want that aren't useful or providing value to your life life instead of simply donating them, which you can do totally fine, you can post them there and get to experience the joy of someone else receiving a new to them item.

Madeline (08:00):

Now as an adult, I live in a small one bedroom apartment. So my, one of my main motivations now for reducing my purchasing is that there's not that much space in my apartment. I am trying very hard not to have a graveyard of kitchen appliances that I use maybe once every two years. I constantly have a running list of things that I do want to acquire. When I first moved in, I didn't have a pie slicer and I didn't have an ice cream scoop and I started sharing that information with other people. Just they would ask, you know, what's left to do in your apartment? And I think six months later, my uncles who live nearby, their neighbors were moving and they have three pie slicers, do you wanna come pick one out? And it was really exciting because it was this thing that I knew that I wanted that I wasn't in a rush to acquire and that I got to like share in this experience of putting something to use that otherwise might have gotten thrown out. And now every time I look at this pie slicer, I like think about how I got it, which feels special even though it's a very mundane household item.

Diana (09:11):

Hi, my name is Diana Holguin. I'm 44. I live in New York City. I am a voiceover actor. I grew up between Miami and Bogota. Colombia. I go back to Colombia to visit at least once a year when I can. Um, I just got married a little over a year ago and uh, yeah, my husband and I live here with my 13-year-old Fox Terrier. Nina. Since I moved to New York, I've been on all the buy nothing groups in my neighborhoods. So one of my favorite buy Nothing stories is I had these cute little mugs that my sister had not gifted me, but she was just clearing out stuff. So she gave me these little mugs from Shanghai that had a cute little lid on top, all ceramic ceramic mug with a ceramic lid. And I posted it on the Buy Nothing Group because I hadn't used them in ages and we were just sort of downsizing.

Diana (10:05):

So I posted them, somebody was interested and the morning that this girl came to pick up the mugs, my husband picks one up to look at it and he flipped it a little bit and the ceramic lid fell and like crashed on the floor into a bunch of little pieces. And I felt really bad 'cause that mug has been around for in my family for at least 10, 12 years and it's been perfect. And the day that it was supposed to go to its New Buy, nothing home, it was broken. So the girl came to pick up her mugs and I gave them to her and I apologized. I said, I'm so sorry. My husband just, he <laugh> he dropped the lid and she was so nice. She said, oh, don't worry about it. I'm, I'm really handy, I'm very crafty, I'm sure I can figure something out.

Diana (10:50):

And I thought, okay, well that's very nice of you to say again, I'm so sorry. So she goes off with her mugs and then, um, like two months later she writes back to me via Facebook and sends me a picture of her crafted lids. And she, she didn't, she made she pa she like glued the lid back together and did something to it like a, some kind of glaze. They made it, made it look like a marble effect. And then she did the same thing to the other ones. So they were matching perfectly and she fixed them. And I was just amazed, like people are very handy and crafty <laugh> and I just thought that was great. Just, um, her attitude and her skill and yeah, you just, it's a great group of people that are on these Buy Nothing groups.

Nick (11:33):

My name is Nick Blocha. I'm 26 years old. I currently live near Milford, Iowa because I'm serving an AmeriCorps position at the, what's known as the Lakeside Labs up on West Okoboji right now. I've been doing a lot of disaster relief and looking into flooding, uh, that's been happening here pretty intensely over the summer. I'm also a long time artist, illustrator writer. I have a degree in film and theater and I worked in entertainment for about 10 years. I have always been a part of Buy Nothing Groups, uh, since I was living on my own and college and beyond, it's kind of been a big part of who I am and my idealism of trading with people of not monetizing on a lot of things on if this can get a use, it should, it shouldn't go into a landfill. I've given away things all between couches, chairs, coffee pots, et cetera, all kinds of things really.

Nick (12:37):

I, uh, a lot of my pots for my plants I got off of buy nothing groups or lamps, et cetera. Anything can be done that way. And I feel like especially when there's something like clothing, I'd like to try to see in my area if there's someone directly that I can give it to or who wants it that will get an immediate use outta these things before I try to go and donate it somewhere. Either for not-for-profit thrift Shop of some kind, that would resell it. Honestly. My favorite thing about the buying Nothing movements and the moments that you find are the moments with people. The moments when you meet somebody like, oh, I don't know who this person is gonna be or, and maybe you bring a friend along, but it really is inspiring and heartwarming when it's just another person that either wants to get rid of some stuff and thinks the same way or who is looking for something and you can be like, Hey, yeah, here's a thing that you can use that we all need in this society in this day and age. And so long as we can help each other out. I think there's nothing better community wise.

Katelan (13:46):

There is something about Buy Nothing groups that feels like magic or like kismet. I've heard so many stories of people who were just thinking that they needed or wanted something. Maybe their pasta strainer broke or they wanted a new desk lamp and then a neighbor offers up the very thing that they were looking for. It makes me think within our communities, maybe we already have everything we need.

Katelan (14:13):

One of my personal favorite Buy Nothing stories is that my partner had a pair of suede Oxfords that he'd had for years. They were a little tight and he just didn't really wear them much. So I posted them to my group and my neighbor wanted them for her teenage son. Her house was on my dog walking route, so I just stopped by and dropped them off on our walk. And before I'd even gotten home, she'd already messaged me a photo of her son in the shoes. He was smiling really big. She said that they fit him perfectly and she was just so grateful because he's a teenager and he is growing out of shoes all the time. And I just kept thinking, these shoes have been in the back of our closet for years and someone just a few blocks away from me actually could use them.

Katelan (14:55):

You can also lean on community to borrow stuff that you don't need for very long, or even borrow something that maybe you're considering buying, but you wanna test it out first. I've borrowed a big shovel to dig up a bush, a Scrabble board for a little vacation, a pirate hook hand for a Halloween costume. Once it sinks in how many resources each of us has and how generous people can be, it not only makes it easier to realize opportunities to buy less stuff, it helps you realize how valuable your stuff is. And I'm not talking about measuring value by how much money it costs, but instead how useful it is to your community. That was a big epiphany moment for me. Stuff is important. Our stuff requires a lot of resources from the planet and it costs us money and time and space. So even when something is no longer important or useful to you, it could be important or useful to someone else and it's worth it to find out. You can find Buy Nothing or free groups near you on Facebook or the Buy Nothing app. And if you're on your own personal path, buy less stuff. I'd also like to recommend our past episodes on over consumption and convenience culture. Of course I'm biased, but I think that they're really helpful.

Katelan (16:12):

The team here at Commons, we are big fans of a community driven circular economy. With Black Friday coming up fast, we figured why not lean on community instead of spending all of our dollars at big corporations, which is why we started the Commons Earth Exchange. A few weekends before Black Friday from November 15th to November 17th, we're asking folks around the US and the world to host and attend swaps sales and buy nothing events in their communities. It can be a small yard sale, a clothing swap with your neighbors, or just a little table of free stuff on the sidewalk. We already have dozens of events on the map. If you wanna host your own or attend an event, go to Exchange dot the Commons Earth to see all the events so far. And if you're into de consumption and finding simple ways to live more sustainably, you'll love our Instagram at Second Nature Earth. Thank you so much to our listeners who shared what they've given or received for free from their communities today. You heard from —

Katelan (17:17):

This episode was edited and engineered by Evan Goodchild. It was written and produced by me, Kaitlyn Cunningham. Next week we are picking apart the health and nutrition of a plant-based diet. Until then, I hope you find some ways to connect with your community. See you soon.

Taylor (17:36):

Alright, well that's all it was very fun doing this and I can't wait to hear the episode. Thanks. Bye.

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