EBay is so yesterday.

For the environmentally minded consumer wishing to part with unwanted goods, freecycling is the next big thing.

Nearly a million peopleworldwide have already joined the grassroots online movement, whose members recycle objects they no longer have a use for - from fax machines to beanbags - by giving them away for free via online message boards.

The not-for-profit FreecycleNetwork was started in 2003 in Tucson, Arizona, to help reduce waste and prevent thesurrounding desert landscape being taken over by landfills.

It is now both a global and a local movement - because people usually have to meet to exchange goods, groups have grown up in 2,400 towns and cities across the world.

The scheme is most popular in America, but there 78 freecycle "communities" in Germany, 52 in the UK and 37 in Australia. Nepal has seven freecyclers, Lithuania three and Azerbaijan six. Each group has its own message board on Yahoo!, where members are asked to follow guidelines set out on the network's website, www.freecycle.org.

These include only exchanging items that are free, legal and appropriate for all ages, avoiding politics or dating ads and using the same format for the subject line of messages, for example: OFFER: Edwardian sideboard; WANTED: bass guitar; TAKEN: double bed.

Recent offers on the London message board include a yellow toaster, a pub-style dartboard, a Victorian fireplace and some yukka plants. There are requests for fairy lights, pots and pans, a banjo and small bits of Perspex.

Georgina Bloomfield, a waste campaigner for Friends of the Earth and a Freecycle member, says: "It's a really good idea. There are lots of networks indifferent areas so the distance people have to go to collect things is quite short. There is no cost for posting messages, and if people come and collect something from your door, it is much easier than throwing it away. It prevents people from having to buy new goods. A lot of the items that are on there are electrical, which have quite a big environmental impact when they are produced and also in the waste they create."

Thanks to the auction site eBay, people are now accustomed to the idea of exchanging items over the internet. Unlike eBay, though, Freecycle does not charge a fee to advertise, so users can offer a weird and wonderful range ofobjects without worrying about whether anyone will want them.

Brian Viziondanz, an artist and musician from Brighton, has been freecycling for just three weeks. He says: "I have found a rotating ironing machine for ironing curtains, and I've picked up some LPs, some lampshades and a nice little washstand. It's kind of like Christmas - you never know what you're going to open. It seems to attract very friendly, very open people who care enough about the planet to make the effort."