Moseley Swap Shop sees junk turn into treasure

• Feb. 28 by Christopher Smith (1)

Birmingham Friends of the Earth encouraged local residents to swap their trash for treasure on Saturday (27^th February), as they held their first Moseley Swap Shop.

The event, which was held at the Prince of Wales, encouraged people to bring along unwanted items to exchange for other items that others had donated to the swap shop.

Items at the swap shop included vintage clothing, videos, DVD’s and computer games, as well as homeware.

Speaking about the event, organiser Beth Fisher said:

“It’s been really good – really busy!

A lot of people turned up with loads of stuff at the beginning, which was a little bit of a worry because we thought we might never get rid of it.”

“But then we’ve had quite a lot of people in and quite a lot of the stuff’s gone and yeah, it all turned out pretty well!”

Swap shops, along with websites such as Freegle, have become increasingly popular in recent years, allowing people to swap unwanted items for new items without creating waste.

Beth added:

“I personally have stopped buying new stuff because I think there’s so much stuff in the world already that you can get everything you need second hand apart from food and pants so I just try and help people do that.”

“You don’t need new things; you don’t even need to spend money on new things. People will literally give you everything you need.”

Speaking on Birmingham Friends of the Earth campaign, Beth said:

“We’ve got various campaign groups. We’re doing a ‘Get Serious’ campaign and a ‘Fix the Food chain’ campaign.

I’m also running a recycled craft group, which is every third Monday of the month at the Friends of the Earth warehouse in Digbeth.”

The Moseley Swap Shop will be taking place on the last Saturday of every month.