FailCycle

In a normal process of elimination, you end up with the best option by eliminating the lesser ones.  This exercise is sort of the opposite. We’ll start with something useful and then see how much of the usefulness we can eliminate:

OFFER: old plywood, large;  small two by four

I’m always building stuff, that sounds pretty handy. Let’s read on:

plywood is about 6 feet by 2.5-3 feet

Hmmm . . . sort of narrow for a lot of projects, but maybe handy for some shelving or as a roof in that playhouse I’m building for the kids . . .

with some rectangles cut out of it.

The shape is not as relevant here as the fact that they are rectangular holes but OK, scratch the shelving or roof idea. Maybe it could be a wall in the playhouse, the rectangles could be windows!

Has some moldy black spots from being damp.

Mold, huh? OK, scratch the playhouse altogether. Maybe I could cut it up for firewood?

It’s getting rained on today.

Alright, scratch the firewood idea.  And there you have it, a process of elimination of all utility. Hey, didn’t he say there was a two by four available as well?

small 2×4 is about 2.5 to 3 feet long and is painted white

Wow, compared to the wet, moldy plywood full of holes, that sounds pretty much like winning the lottery! I’ll take it!!

Well, I have to give them credit, they came right out with it:

OFFER: Stale loaf of bread

No sugarcoating here, baby.  It’s stale. And it gets worse. Much, much worse . . .

Have a full loaf of stale white bread. Tried to get my 2 year old to eat PB&J sandwiches with no luck

so it’s not *actually* full, is it? Let’s call it “gently used”

so it has sat in our fridge (set at 40 degrees)

actually, that’s a bit warm, but I digress

for quite some time. There isn’t any visible mold, but I’m not sure it’s fit for human consumption, it maybe ok for the birds

Oh, so you’re a bird hater, are you?

(not sure if eating bread is a good thing for them either)

OK, not a bird hater, nevermind.

I would just hate to throw out this full loaf of bread in the garbage if someone has a better/more creative use for it. Prefer pickup today otherwise it will go in the garbage for tomorrow’s trash pickup.

Freecycle’s main goal is to save space in landfills.  Bread (even stale bread) will decompose in a landfill in 3~4 weeks. But even setting that aside, what exactly is a creative use for a partially used stale loaf of bread? Hand muffs? Geocaching container? Atkins diet motivational tool?  Again, some things do actually belong in a landfill.  It’s time to let the bread go.

May of 2010 found this offer:

OFFER: 2009 calendar of Georgia O’Keeffe prints

Approximately 7x7in. Old calendar. One color illustration print for each month. For a Georgia O’Keeffe fan.

I can think of a lot of times when a 2009 calendar would be very handy, but none of those times are denoted with a 2010 at the end.  OK, I know, it’s just for the photos, but 12 7-inch square pictures? Really?  Couldn’t you just look here?