UKH

I'm currently trying to get rid of an old but 100% still serviceable composting bin on Gumtree, free of charge to anyone who wants to come and collect it.

As seems so often to be the case when I try to give stuff away online, I end up with a load of timewasters who ask if it's available, say they'll come and collect it, then don't turn up - but don't have the courtesy of letting me know that they've changed their mind until I chase them up.

What is it with people who regard an arrangement to collect free goods as being entirely optional in this way?  Do people get all excited at the possibility of getting something, anything for free and just jump in without a second thought, then lose all interest once they've actually taken some time to think it through?  Even if that were the case, not even bothering to tell me about their change of heart is just rude IMO.

I'm almost tempted to put a nominal price on it, to see if I get fewer timewasters, then if someone does actually turn up say they can have it for nowt.

Put it on the pavement outside your house with a sign and saying it’s for sale for 10 quid. Someone will rob it for sure. 

People can be rude.

If you asked for money people will assume it's worth something and take it a bit more seriously.

I have experienced this sort of thing before. Free stuff has no value so people don't want it. Put a price on it and you can sell it three times over so do that or drop it off at your local allotments, someone will be grateful.for it.

Is Freecycle active in your area? That tends to attract a more specific crowd who are consciously trying to reduce landfill and less likely to waste your time. 

Around here, we just tend to leave stuff out on the street at the end of the drive. Some things go faster than others, but almost anything will find a taker if you leave it a few days. 

To be honest I've had similar experiences in the past with Freecycle. I finally gave up on it when some kind of disagreement broke out between rival internal factions and we ended up with two separate freecycling organisations operating in the area. All very Life of Brian: meaningless to anyone not interested in petty internal politicking and thoroughly off-putting.

The allotments idea is a good one, I might well swing past there and ask if they can find a home for it.

If that fails then I think it'll go at the end of the drive with a "Please look after this bin" label round it.

I didn’t realize the Conservative Party was into Freecycling. 

It's dammed frustrating 😞

I experienced that with Freegle in Edinburgh years back.  You'd get loads of folks replying saying they wanted something and then you'd sit waiting and they'd not show. 

After experiencing that a few times I decided on a different approach. I'd put on the advert that the goods will be available for collection on (insert date that suits you here) if no one turns up they go to the tip.

You pick a time you know you'll be in and that way you don't waste your time waiting for no shows. If no one shows off to the tip.... 

I have given stuff away on Trash Nothing. I copy some text at the bottom to saying what I expect from someone replying to the advert and that if they don't come when they say they will, it will be given to the next person on the list. It works better, but not perfectly. 

+1 for leaving stuff on the street, no price tag required. Left a couple of bike wheels t'other day, gone within hours.

I've used Olio recently for getting rid of some household stuff (office chair and a big plastic crate). I definitely found fewer time-wasters and rude folk on there than on Gumtree/Freecycle.

I'd put your old composting bin into your new composting bin

The one and only time I did a car boot sale, amongst the 2nd hand stuff, we had a brand new child's bike. It was about £75 brand new. We tried selling it for 50, then 25, then 20. The buyers were haggling, obviously, but it got worse and worse. At this point I'd given up, I'd rather give it away,  but for a laugh I carried on. Eventually we said we'll take a tenner, the c*+ts offered a fiver. 

You obviously don't understand the concept of car boot sales 

I'm shifting 2 kiddies bikes down my local bikes for cancer charity place.

Join the club. I know of at least four of those things going for free at the moment, and no doubt all for the same reason. I've never seen one that isn't full of waste that looked pretty much the same as it did when it went in. The idea of home composting seems good, but you have to be pretty dedicated to make good compost, then actually use it. 

Yup, that sounds spot on. In your case I'd guess people think they'll either use it themselves, or be able to sell it on and make some money. Then they realise that it'll cost more to collect than it's worth. i.e. nothing.

Ditto. Near me I think scrap metal guys do the rounds every day. This week put out a very old laptop broken open to remove HDrive and it was gone in no time.

Erm yeah. Basically. 

We have a local Facebook group for giving stuff away. 

I post just about everything I don't want on there and 95% of the time it goes but as you say time wasters are bloody annoying. I have put the same dog harness up 3 times now and 3 times people have failed to show. 

It does amuse me with people asking for things, you see things like "anyone gifting a washing machine, must be silver, mine broke and I'm desperate"  "TV broke, anyone gifting one? Must be 40 inch plus smart TV" 

Breaking news: someone contacted me via Gumtree about it today and actually turned up to collect it!  And, as Ennerdaleblonde suggested might be the case, it was someone wanting it for their allotment.  They even tried to give me some money for it but I told them I was just happy for it go to someone who would make good use of it.

My faith in the essential well-meaningness of humanity is somewhat restored.

Have you been spying on our garden?!  I bought the compost bin in a fit of enthusiasm when we first moved in 20 years ago.  For many years we rarely had anything more than lawn clippings to put in it, and without a decent amount of drier material to add to it, it all just sat there in a soggy lump.  (I know some people recommend newspaper or cardboard if you don't have suitable other material from the garden, but we rarely bought newspapers even then, and almost all of the cardboard boxes we acquire get re-used.)  We also turned out not to have that much need for compost - I doubt we've got through even one 50litre bag a year since we've been here.  We do, though, get the occasional dumpy bag of well-rotted farmyard "soil conditioner" delivered from a company in East Lothian.  I think that stuff has got much more goodness in it than anything we'd get out of a compost bin anyway.

Once the council started doing kerbside collections of garden waste, that gave us an easy way to send the grass cuttings for composting by someone who knew what they were doing.  Even though the council now charge for the kerbside collection, we find it worth paying for because with the garden now rather more mature we are generating more compostable waste than previously.  Plus it saves us multiple trips to the tip each year - for that reason, anyway (and it saves us having to clean the back of the car out after each trip to the tip with multiple old and holed bags full of garden waste!)

I remember my Mum and Dad used to keep a compost heap in the garden when I was a kid.  In all the time we lived there I don't recall them ever actually taking anything compost-like from it.  It just seemed to sit in an otherwise unused corner of the (quite large) garden and get slower bigger and bigger...

Put it on the pavement, put an ad on saying first come first served and your postcode. Ignore all messages and take down ad when you notice it's gone. Hassle free.

I put something (a massive and utterly hideous rug) on Freecycle in Edinburgh last month. Immediate interest, gave it to the first person, who turned up an hour or so later to pick it up with many thanks. The next day they sent me a nice photo of the rug in its new home, and I got to feel smug about not chucking it in the tip.

A thoroughly positive and hassle-free experience

Off topic, but we have a composting bin left by the previous owners. It's full of feathers, I've no idea where they're from or what to do with them or the bin, other than leave it for Ms Artif to deal with as she's the gardener. 

We've got a 400ltr aerobin hot composter into which a few worms found their way. We get loads of good compost from it and we now don't throw anything organic into the wheelie bin.

I'll be putting my tomato plants into the winter waste created compost next week.