Manchester GreenCycle is a large community of environmentally responsible local people who give their unwanted and reusable items to other members. This extends the life of the item, and prevents it from going to landfill while reducing its carbon footprint which contributes to global warming.
The group formed on 9 January 2008 and currently has over 9,800 members. It is part of the Freegle network, a nonprofit UK organisation which was formed on 11 September 2009.
On average, the group members post 950 items each month, which makes it a busy group.
The community has a sister cafe group, a space for things that cannot be posted on the main group such as advice, community information, events and workshops. Once can also ask for advice, volunteers, and advertise local events here. A number of carefully selected local groups and organisations which are ethical and do good work for the local community use the cafe group as a central hub to network.
The group is owned and run by a small dedicated and ethically motivated team of staff called moderators. The moderators all live in the Manchester area, and cwork hard to improve the group for all its members. They keep spammers and troublemakers away from the group. The current moderator team consists of: Jessicca - the group owner, Caroline, Sharon and Tina - moderators.
History
The group was originally part of the Freecycle Network. Due to several years of disagreements between the US-based organisation and a large number of UK moderators, group owners and senior management, the Manchester GreenCycle moderators were forced to stop operating the group under the freecycle banner, so moved it to the new Freegle network.