Large green and blue barrels dot the curbs all over Newton. If it alarms you as to how much trash and recyclables you and your family generate each and every week of the year, you are not alone. Newton’s Sustainable Management Commission has completed a report “Setting the Path to Zero Waste” to set plans to prioritize waste reduction.
A fun and community-enhancing way to reduce waste is to make sure items get re-used, rather than to end up in a landfill. Massachusetts has only six landfills, and they are expected to reach capacity by 2030.
A set of “Buy Nothing Newton” pages on Facebook help everyone wanting to clean out their homes (or their kids’ rooms) and share items that still have a lot of life left in them. These pages are also places where brand new, but unwanted, items find a good home. And it’s easy. Go to the Buy Nothing Newton pages on Facebook that are focused on these parts of Newton:
- Buy Nothing Newton Corner/Newtonville/Nonantum, Newton, MA
- Buy Nothing West Newton/Auburndale, Newton, MA
- Buy Nothing Newton (Centre/Highlands/Upper Falls/Waban), MA
- Buy Nothing Oak Hill, Newton, MA
After registering to join one of these pages, you can scroll through to find something you could use, and you can leave a comment indicating that you are interested in the item. Within a day or so, the person gifting the item lets people know to whom the item is gifted. The person gifting the item communicates an address to that recipient by a private direct message via Facebook Messenger. The person receiving the gift then picks up the item.
If you wish to gift an item, you take a picture, write a brief (sometimes funny) description, and post them. After a day or so, you pick the person to whom you are gifting the item. The item disappears from your front porch within days, when your selected picks it up.
This is a win-win-win, generating positive feelings in the community:
- Items that are gifted are saved from going to the landfill. This is important, as landfills are overflowing and costly to municipalities.
- Gifting makes the person gifting the item feel good and helps to eliminate clutter.
- And receiving something you want or need from a total stranger is gratifying.
Items offered for gifts are sometimes awarded to people who state that they will donate it to the Newton Freedge, the Newton Food Pantry Clothing Drive, and Welcome Home.
Gifted items over the past short period have included: bedroom furniture, kids’ toys and books, clothing (some brand new), canes, calendars, cans of tuna and other foods, spices, soaps, containers of all sorts, shoes and boots, books, holiday decorations, plants, toiletries, small appliances, kitchen gear, games, snow boots, carpets, suitcases, paints and canvases, musical instruments and many more.
Newton also manages the Newton Recovery (Recycling) Center at Rumsford Avenue, where people can drop off items or pick up items in-person. A list of what can be brought to the Center can be found here.