Freecycle Diaries: Desperately seeking boxes

Welcome to the second instalment of the Freecycle Diaries, in which Natasha Lomas puts the web giveaway service to the test - and shares her experiences, for better and for worse. Today she searches for some moving boxes - and finds a whole lot more.

I'm moving flats again so my first act as I get reacquainted with the weird and wonderful world of Freecycle is to post a wanted message. I'm desperately seeking some boxes so I can pack up my things. It's not much to ask but if Freecycle can't help me locate a load of old cardboard I will have to resort to street scavenging on bin day. Not my idea of fun.

I post my wanted message and in less than an hour I have two replies.

Philip in W7 offers to ask a friend who he thinks has "a few large boxes in his garage". Sonia, meanwhile, is about to move house to a nearby street and says she'll have about 15 to 20 boxes up for grabs in a few days - which sounds ideal. We arrange a collection time via email - and I beg a lift off a friend - and soon I'm the proud owner of an assortment of flat-packed cardboard boxes. Simple.

What strikes me about Freecyclers is the sheer enthusiasm people display to go out of their way to be helpful.

For instance, once I'd arranged to collect my aforementioned boxes from Sonia I sent a quick thank you email to Philip to let him know I'd found an alternative source. He replies: "That is a shame as I checked & there are quite a lot of boxes in the garage some big enough to put me in!" He then adds: "Good luck with the move; they are there if you need them."

Being helpful is clearly the first commandment of this digital microcosm.

Freecycle's motto is 'Changing the world one gift at a time'. And browsing my local group's message list it's clear how the movement is a jumble-sale of gestures - the friendly ones, the hopeful ones, the somewhat leftfield ones.

Someone in Harrow is looking for a wedding dress - in size 24.

There's a double futon on offer in Northfields, a Lexmark Z615 inkjet printer just down the road from me in Ealing and even a "much loved" M-reg Volvo estate in another part of West London - whose owner clearly can't quite bear the thought of sending it to be scrapped.

"The clutch has gone and the battery needs recharging," she laments, "but I'm sure it still has some life left in it for a person with mechanical know-how."

The car may need towing away but it doesn't languish on Freecycle for long - offered at 10.42pm, it's "taken subject to collection" by 10.56pm.

All life really is here.

Natasha Lomas will be keeping a Freecycle diary over the coming weeks - follow her progress on silicon.com. Read the first instalment.