I have been running Birmingham Freegle now since 2004, and in all that time the sum total of support I have got from Birmingham City Council has been a meaningless award.
Why meaningless? – because it resulted in zero support or even publicity from the council, and so has not resulted in one single item extra being saved from rotting in landfill unnecessarily.
You would think that they would love a voluntary group that helped them keep usable items out of landfill in Birmingham, but no. For the first few years that I ran Birmingham Freegle contacting the council was a monthly event. As their silence grew deafening it became an annual event… – and now I am so tired of banging my head against the wall that my frustration has boiled over into the form of this blogpost.
See for yourself what happens when you search the city council site for the term “freegle”.
So: I am explicitly asking whoever is in charge of environmental affairs at Birmingham City Council: why can you not even mention or link to Freegle from the city council website? This is NOT a rhetorical question either: I would like an answer.
And I will keep on publicising this post and pestering them until I get one. And I will publish any and all replies here.
In the meantime, please join with me in asking Birmingham city council why they refuse to publicise a service that stops waste being put into landfill and allows people to get items and furniture for free.
Update: March 22nd 2017: Birmingham City Council after a judicious bit of persistent pestering listed and linked to Birmingham Freegle on their pages detailing where to recycle household waste in Birmingham and how to book bulk waste collections in Birmingham.
Success!!