Hundreds of swappers were out and about for the County Wide Swap Shop on Saturday 23rd January. 9 Swap Shops took place around the county. An amazing amount of goods changed hands, from books, Christmas decorations, mugs and piantings to toys and Venetian blinds.
Swaps that had safety testing for electrical items were particularly busy, Wallingford, Dorchester-on-Thames and Wheatley. Canalside Environment Group had a special event run by members' children for, mainly children, and a table that was laden with toys and children's items just seemed to disappear.
Frances Buckel spoke on radio Oxford in the morning to tell everyone where the events where being held and how a swap shop worked. She encouraged people to join the fun of the day. People can bring unwanted, but reusable items, or pick up anything they want for free. You don’t have to bring anything to take something home, and you don’t have to take to bring. You can even just come along to browse! There is one nearly every Saturday each month, check the website for more details.
In 2009 more than 2000 people attended the eleven Swaps Shops that took place on 7th March as part of the County Wide Swap and approximately 5000 kilograms of goods were taken away, as well as many items that are not normally collected from the kerb side collections but can still be recycled. A further five events took place on subsequent Saturdays in March making sixteen events throughout the month.
In March 2009 outside broadcasts took place at Wallingford and Dorchester were CAG volunteers had the opportunity to speak about their swaps shops. Caron from Sustainable Wallingford said, "Swap shops make people think about how to reuse articles and it is a great opportunity for re-use and recycling".
Three events took place, which were run by people who are not normally part of the CAG network. These involved guides and scouts in Hook Norton and Abingdon as well as the residents' association in Abingdon. Master Composters attended five events to promote recycling through home composting.
Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) took place at 5 events, where PAT testers were kept busy testing electrical items before they could be taken away. Most of the items that fail the PAT test were those that did not have a CE mark, therefore are very old and have to be discarded, but they can still be recycling.
The County Wide Swap Shop is a fantastic way to generate publicity for reuse and the CAG project. Thanks to all who took part last it was a fantastic day, make the 2010 event even bigger.