Cleaning out the clutter

Give Your Stuff Away day takes place on Saturday. It’s a better idea than dumping, Mike Morone tells Jonathan de Burca Butler

THIS Saturday the third annual Give Your Stuff Away Day takes place across the world. Well the world might be pushing it a bit, but if the founder of the event Mike Morone from New York has his way GYSAD will become as well-known as Halloween.

The concept is really rather simple. On Saturday you take anything that you have in mind for the scrapheap and instead of dumping it, you stack it on a table outside in the hope that someone comes and takes it. Think of it as a sort of international garage sale but without the cash. As the saying goes one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.

“It was really something that was kicking around in my head for a long, long time,” says Morone. “I’ve always been one of those people who likes junk. As a kid I was always finding things of value and wondering why people would throw them out. I hate waste of all kinds, it’s sinful really. I mean it’s actually of no benefit to anybody. If you leave a TV on when you’re not watching it who benefits from it? I think really that society should be more mindful of the scarce resources we’re wasting all the time.”

Morone has always been interested in recycling and eliminating waste. Several years ago he ran a computer recycling programme in his home county of Rochester, New York which provided 2,500 free used computers to local students. But he admits that he has maybe at times taken things to amusing extremes.

“I remember one day about 20 years ago I was working in a school near this old building, it was a hospital and they were renovating part of it,” he explains. “Anyway, they threw out these gymnastics’ mats. And I thought well my kids are involved in gymnastics. So I waited until everyone had left, I didn’t want anyone to see me, and jumped into this dumpster and started pulling them out. Of course two colleagues did see me and they’ve never let me forget it.”

For the former teacher the world we live in, and specifically the western world, is a cluttered, wasteful place and he sees the creation of industrialisation, mass production and what he calls ‘the mall’ as central components of the problem. Ireland is reportedly one of the highest producers of waste per head in Europe. It is suggested that were we to dump our rubbish in Croke Park it would reach the top of the stands. But that is nothing in comparison to the USA where 11 billion tonnes is thrown out every year — that’s 23,900 Titanics.

“Industrialised countries have learned to mass produce items cheaply,” says Morone. “I think since the ‘40s and ‘50s we’ve been shopping like crazy, especially the industrialised countries. And as a result we now overshop. If we think about it there are so many ways of getting the stuff into our homes, online shops, retail shops, wholesale shops, but there are so few ways to get the stuff back out, the surplus items, and I think we really need to think about that.”

Although some politicians, including the Governor of Alaska, and municipalities such as that of Sacremento in California have given Morone support he is finding it difficult to get the powers that be on board.

“Most government officials are not in favour of it,” he says. “You know, they say, it’s against their ordinances, it’ll create waste, they think they’ll be burdened with having to haul lots of different items off to landfill. And I’ve been trying to convince them that the opposite is true. It will actually reduce their expenses because so many more things will end up not going to landfill. They’ll save a lot of money. And no, it’s not magic, there will probably be stuff left in neighbourhoods for a few days afterwards, but you have to trade something for such a good programme.”

Morone has plenty of support from elsewhere, and like any good revolution these days much of it is coming from Facebook where he has nearly 5,000 fans on his page.

The 53-year-old also has four fans at home in the shape of his wife, Kris, and their three children who have a little way to go yet on the whole recycling thing, according to their father.

“It’s a constant battle with them,” he laughs. “I’m always finding soda cans and things that are recyclable all over the place.”

Morone is not going to be giving anything away himself on the day which might come as a bit of surprise. But as he points out he gives stuff away all the time. One his great hopes is that children may come across something that inspires them or leads them to a lifelong love of a sport or pastime that they would not otherwise get exposure to. But his main aim is to reduce that landfill.

“I think that shopping is actually part of our nature,” he says. “From earliest times I think we were programmed to get up, go out and bring stuff back. But back then it was berries and vegetables and animals. I think that instinct is still alive today except it’s shopping which has become convenient and fun. Now, what I hope will happen is that when this event gets into the mainstream people will find it fun and they’re going to be giving away some really big things. It’ll become like a treasure hunt.”