WWW.SURREYREUSES.COM: Almost anything under $99 can be sold on site
John Bermingham
Province
Tomorrow, the City of Surrey launches a recycling website that will allow residents to sell, trade or give away their old stuff to others.
The www.surreyreuses.com site amounts to a bulletin board for old computer equipment, appliances and furniture.
The group that started the website plans to offer similar sites throughout the Lower Mainland.
“What we’re about is reducing the amount of waste,” said Brock Macdonald of the Recycling Council of B.C. Friday.
“If we can do that by promoting the reuse of things, then we keep material out of the landfill.”
The website rules allow items to be sold for up to $99, but prohibit sales of illegal or hazardous materials.
The site also includes a list of non-profit organizations that will take household goods and clothing.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts says she’s thrilled at such a practical use of the Internet. “We simply see this as a terrific means of promoting and encouraging household reuse and recycling through direct person-to-person exchange,” she says.
“This will take household recycling to an entirely new level.”
Rob Constanzo, Surrey’s solid-waste manager, says the city used to run a curbside reuse program, but had to can it because the items were getting scattered around on the street or ruined by the rain.
“We felt the best way to handle this would be through a person-to-person communication, via the website,” he says.
Since December 2004, the recycling council has been operating a similar recycling website in Vancouver, at www.vancouver.reuses.com.
It now has 722 registered users, who have exchanged about 600 items and diverted more than 8,500 kilograms from the city’s landfill.
Lindsay Moffit, City of Vancouver recycling manager, says the website is valuable because it allows for the exchanges of low-end goods that too often end up in the landfill.
The next challenge is getting the word out, he adds.
“Web pages are great, and definitely a big part of the future,” says Moffit. “But people have to know where to go and what the service is and what it is to begin with.”
Those without Internet access can call the Recycling Council of B.C. hotline at 604-732-9253 if they’re in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, or 1-800-667-4321 elsewhere in B.C.
© The Vancouver Province 2006
