As money gets tight, and concerns about climate change grow, more and more people are starting to act to make changes in how they live. RecycleLocal is a start up business to help people in Manchester give away and recycle things that they don’t want anymore, to save money and to save carbon. A little bit like eBay in reverse.

RecycleLocal will operate using a Google-like ‘freemium’ model, where the basic service is free and premium services like delivery, SMS alerts, wanted ad placement and eco-removals will incur a cost. There is no cutting-edge technology magic required to make this work, but many recent and existing communications technologies - iPhone and Facebook applications, Twitter, SMS, will be employed to make the service as easy to use as possible and easily accessible.

RecycleLocal will start small - South Manchester only - and be co-developed and marketed to and by influencers and advocates at a local level. There is no real local or national competition of this sophistication, although an email-based service called Freecycle operates nationally and with nearly 30,000 members in the Manchester area proves the market need.

RecycleLocal is in an early startup phase and is being championed by David Hawdale, a User Experience Consultant with many years experience in making websites easy to use for ordinary people. Business and technical roles within the team are being actively sought, as well as seed funding for a projected Beta launch late 2009.