The sky wasn’t yet dark when I came home from the Maundy Thursday covered dish supper, so it’s spring, friends, and time to clean up the homestead.

The hardest part is always figuring out what to do with all that stuff you have that’s too good to throw away. You know what I mean, those expensive New Balances that didn’t fit and you didn’t get around to taking them back to the store but they’re brand new, that Health-O-Meter seat scale and the crutches you acquired but never used when you had the bum leg a couple of years back, the home barbering kit you nearly cut off somebody’s ear with, the ceiling fixtures you replaced because they didn’t accommodate fluorescent bulbs? That’s all stuff I gave away to somebody who actually wanted the junk-to-me I was tripping over. That’s not mentioning the organ — the organ like a piano, not the organ like a liver — I Freecycled for a relative.

So I recommend freecycling for spring .

On the flip: What is Freecycling? How can I find these suckers who’ll take my banty rooster that my hens won’t have anything to do with or the infant outfits my teenager outgrew? What about all that gasoline that’s wasted driving around to pick up three bodice rippers or drop off an extra extension cord? What’s the downside of freecycling?

The underlying primary purpose of Freecycling is keeping stuff out of landfills. Every washing machine you give away or recliner you take is another cubic yard or so of stuff kept out of a landfill. Freecycling also stretches budgets for people who can’t otherwise afford the toys their kids want or furniture for a new addition to their household. And it develops community; I’ve met a lot of nice and/or interesting people (sometimes people only a couple of blocks away) and nobody truly dreadful, some of them obviously just barely scraping by and others just as obviously leading privileged lifestyles. Personally, I like rubbing elbows like that.

Worldwide, there are more than 2 million Freecyclers in 3,511 Freecycling e-communities, surely at least one of them near you.

All you do to get rid of that 6-foot-wide plush toy octopus (yes, I’ve seen offers like that) is post a message to the list describing the thing, including its condition. The subject line should read: OFFER: big octopus stuffed toy, [location]. You give your location because most everybody, including you, will drive to Hillview if that’s the town you live in but not 20 miles away to Riverview unless it’s an item you really, really want and need that will cost you a bundle at your local corner store.

Which brings up the problem of wasting ever-more-expensive gas and adding more crud to our polluted air. When gas prices were rising steadily last year, and still I saw Freecyclers giving and receiving modest goods like two pairs of size 6 girls’ shorts or a spice rack, I asked an e-list I moderate about the economics of it all. One listmate noted that in many suburban-exurban areas, all time not spent in the work cubicle or sleeping is spent driving around in circles, and the question wouldn’t arise. Another described quite a complicated setup, with Freecyclers picking up stuff for somebody else at the Sector A pickup point and dropping it off at the Sector C pickup point, where they’re picking up something left for them by somebody in Sector F. She ends with “Don’t forget about the energy being saved at the manufacturing end if many families are getting sequential use out of strollers and video games.” Not to say my neighbors are stupid, but I can’t visualize this functioning successfully in my neck of the woods. Overall, the best advice is to Freecycle as nearby as possible and to batch errands, as in pick up your Freecycle shower curtains after you stop off at the post office on your way to the dentist’s.

The danger of Freecycling is the likelihood that you’ll wind up with more not exactly vital stuff than you started with. Did I really need that console tube record player that some guy’s grandmother was getting rid of? Can I justify filling a bookcase with medieval history books someone didn’t want to yet again load on a moving van? (Well, she did say “a box,” which I was picturing as six or eight books, and that bookcase used to hold an encyclopedia I Freecycled away so I didn’t have to acquire yet another bookcase.) At least it’s different stuff to dust twice a year.

And I’ve love to hear your stories about Freecycling or your questions.