What the website for passing items on rather than throwing them away?

Freecycle

www.freecycle.org
And you can look for yahoo groups in your area.
http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=freecycle

This is a great idea.

You can also list them in the free section of craigslist.org.

Thank you, and sorry about my typo. I hope someone will need a futon, a rocking horse, and some chairs!!

I third the Freecycle suggestion. I used it to pare down my belongings before hauling all my crap across the country. People will take all sorts of stuff if it’s free and it feels really good to know that whatever you’re getting rid of is still in circulation with people who can use it. I just realized that this is very helpful to someone with slight hoarding tendencies; it makes it easier to get rid of something if I know it’s not going in the trash.

Here is an alternative to Freecycle that seems to be a little more user friendly. It’s called Reuseit Network (RIN). It’s about a year old, so I’m not sure if it would be as well known in all areas. It’s also a Yahoo group, with the problems associated with those.

Sharing is Giving is a link that lists various recycling sites for each area.

An option for books, music, games and movies is to swap. There are sites that allow you to post your items, and receive one of your choice from the common pool when one of yours is requested. The only cost to you is the shipping.

A few examples of this are:
PaperbackSwap
Swap A DVD
Swap Tree This one is for movies, books, games and music.

@eden2eve I’ve been using Swaptree for a few months now, and love it. Very user-friendly.

@rowenaz If you don’t want to haul your stuff to a donation center, I think the Salvation Army will actually come and collect it. Or maybe it’s Goodwill. I know the last time my mom moved, one of those two groups came to her home to pick up clothes and furniture she didn’t want to take with her.

I’m with @eden2eve and @MissAusten for SwapTree.

@rowenaz I think you will be surprised how fast things go on the Free section of Craigslist. At least I am where I live. Even things that I consider trash (has to be pretty unusable for me to do this) go quickly. I post something, and an hour later I have 50 emails saying I’ll pick it up NOW! The only thing no one wanted was a pair of old washed sneakers I said smelled a tiny bit bad because I had them in the ocean and the didn’t dry out fast enough. But a flimsy magazine rack I made out of a cardboard radiator box and even old plate hangers I found in my neighbor’s dumpster when they were cleaning out the house to sell were taken. I’ve also seen things like toilet paper rolls and half-eaten food go.