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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

That exists already (all those "Got Junk" companies).

What's lacking is:

A "guilt free" way to throw something out, believing someone else will find a use for it. (It's an emotional thing basically.)

And a free way to throw stuff out. Like the city that banned throwing away TVs (it costs quite a bit to throw them out). So what do people do? They dump them in front of public parks, then the city gets called to deal with it "it's on public property", and the city pays to dispose of it.

So basically, the city takes care of TV garbage, just like regular garbage, only with extra steps.

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I'm a member of my community's local Buy Nothing project[0] on Facebook. I find it a decent way to get rid of stuff I don't want anymore and know that it's going directly to someone who can use it.

The process is pretty clunky because a lot of people will claim an item, agree to pick it up, and just never show, so it wastes everyone's time re-offering it to other people who wanted it until someone shows up. It looks like they're launching an official app[1], so I'm interested to see how that affects things. I'd love to see something like a reputation history so you can avoid dealing with people who habitually waste everyone's time.

[0] https://buynothingproject.org/

[1] https://buynothingproject.org/2021/05/04/buynothing-app-pres...

What I do with larger items is leave them on the curb for a few days - if nobody bothers to stop and take it, then I've been confirmed that it's junk and away to the landfill it goes.

We have a kerbside collection 2 times a year for "large rubbish" removal by the local council. You could mistake it for a street festival at times as you see people walking down the road with what they find of use/value and people in utes or towing trailers picking up an old couch they can use.

then a few days later, they council picks up whats left and disposes of it.

we have a local e-waste facility that also 2 times a year hold a free drop off weekend so households can drop off old batteries/car batteries/lights and such that either are not part of the council pickup or could result in broken glass etc in public spaces.

we initially trialed a giveaway/barter event which had limited success (terrible timing) and the council took what was left for disposal and were happier about it being in a carpark than the usual cleanup of a swapmeet on a grassed field.

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