The MOL giveaway market initiated by Entsorgungsbetrieb Märkisch-Oderland in March of this year has been a complete success. This is shown by an initial evaluation of the items offered on the platform www.verschenkemarkt-mol.de.
A total of 931 items to be given away were advertised on the MOL giveaway market by residents of the district in the period from March 17 to August 23, 2024. Of these, 573 actually found a new owner. This puts the proportion of items given away at over 60 percent. Furniture (531) was advertised particularly frequently, but garden tools (65), building materials (47) and children's accessories (42) were also frequently offered. Many of the items on offer are of high quality, in good condition and in some cases even little used because the former owners' life situations or tastes have changed. The new owners of tables, lawnmowers or paving stones are happy about this. Everything from chairs and washing machines to complete kitchens, seating sets, mattresses and surplus tiles are on offer. Old DVDs, lamps and plants from the garden are also in demand.
In total, almost 105,000 citizens of the district visited the give-away market, most of them (almost 63 percent) via the AbfallApp MOL, which is also offered by Entsorgungsbetrieb MOL. At around 80 percent, the smartphone is the preferred medium for visitors to the give-away market, followed at some distance by PC and tablet. On average, six advertisements are posted on the giveaway market every day – and four of the items on offer find a new home every day.
The link between the give-away market and the bulky waste module is also showing initial success: a total of 50 out of 106 items that had already been registered for bulky waste were saved from disposal before they were collected by the refuse collectors. This puts the rate of rescued items that would otherwise have inevitably ended up in the incineration plant at 47 percent.
In view of these figures, plant manager Angela Friesse is extremely satisfied: "Our aim with the give-away market was to make a regional contribution to waste avoidance by simply reusing disused items from one household in another. The ease of use of the platform without prior registration has obviously convinced the users, from whom we have received a lot of positive feedback," states the EMO plant manager.