Meet The Froogles

Sun Herald

Sunday January 28, 2007

By Helen Brown

All over the world, environmentally friendly "froogles" are foresaking shopping for swapping. They're internet bartering as well as making, baking and breeding their own.

Laura Cousins wanted to make soap.

She had all the ingredients: the drain cleaner, essential oil and rainwater. "But

I didn't have the sugar thermometers, or a stainless-steel pan, or a pair of rubber gloves."

Most of us would have remedied the deficit with a quick trip to the shops. But Cousins has made a resolution to buy nothing new for 12 months.

"I placed a 'wanted' ad on Freecycle [www.freecycle.org] for the things I needed," she explains, "and I got the pan and the gloves. But nobody had

a spare sugar thermometer." So she popped round to her elderly neighbour Joyce's house. "She admitted that since her stroke, her jam-making days were over. In exchange for a thermometer, I gave her some eggs from our chickens and promised

a bar of the soap. My resolution allows me to buy essentials and barter for other things I need."

Cousins, a drum-circle facilitator in Bournemouth, England, is part of the "froogle" movement, which began in America but has gone global; the Freecycle website shows thousands of members in Australia.

Froogles use the internet to help them cut their consumpton back to basics. The trend grew out of waste-reducing internet groups such as Freecycle, where goods are exchanged for free. Then in December 2004, New Yorker Judith Levine realised she had spent more than $1000 in the run-up to Christmas and resolved to tap the ATM for nothing but necessities for the next 12 months.

In her book about her fritter-free year, Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, Levine challenged her country's consumer culture. "In New York, only a day after the towers fell," she writes, "Mayor Rudolph Giuliani counselled his trembling constituents to 'show you're not afraid. Go to restaurants. Go shopping.' When the world's people asked how they could help, he said, 'Come here and spend money.' Shopping became a patriotic duty."

Levine questioned if freedom could be bought at the cash register. She'd heard of the International Buy Nothing Day, held each November, but decided to take things 364 days further.

In December 2005, a group of 50 people in San Francisco made an identical pledge for 2006. Calling themselves The Compact, this assortment of teachers, engineers and executives vowed "to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of US consumer culture ... to reduce clutter and waste in our homes". Their resolution permitted the purchase of food, underwear and health and safety items. Other items could be acquired second-hand. A year on, the group is still hanging in there: their blog is at sfcompact.blogspot.com.

After reading about Levine's adventures online, 39-year-old Cousins decided she'd commit to her own 12 months of "froogalism". She is two months in and enjoying herself, although she admits she didn't have a real shopping habit before she started. "I did buy lots of books and CDs. But now I'm making everything myself." Cousins gets her clothes from charity shops. I ask about underwear. She giggles. "I wouldn't buy any second-hand."

Cousins's husband, David, admits that he hasn't gone for the project 100 per cent. He keeps tropical fish, which need new things. And Cousins herself has cheated already. When she needed some chamomile tea bags, her brother bought some for her in exchange for a lift in her car. "That's not really the way it's meant to work," she admits.

"One thing I've had to curb is my impulsive nature," she says. "Luckily, my kids have been trained that if they see something on TV, they can't have it. I want to stop them falling victim to advertising. They're not deprived. Look around you!" Cousins gestures at the mountains of toys she's picked up second-hand. The children have, so far, found the "non-consuming" project a great game. "I'll pay for swimming lessons, trips, but I don't want my children to become obsessed with material things."

When I suggest that finding alternatives may take more time and effort than many people have spare, Cousins tells me about a friend who killed six hours at the local shopping centre. "Shopping can become an addiction," she says. "People get this endorphin rush from buying stuff. But why? Because there's something missing - human contact, perhaps?"

She points out that although we live so close together, our neighbours are often strangers to us. "We don't have extended families close by to help us any more," she says, "and with women having their babies later, grandparents are less likely to be around. Sustainable living is community building.

By car-sharing and bartering, you build a 'family' - and you can't buy those in a mall."