Free stuff capitals of the UK

Every day, thousands of people use Trash Nothing to give away unwanted items instead of throwing them away, helping others, saving money, and cutting waste.

In the last year the Trash Nothing community in the UK gave away an enormous 618,653 items. That’s a lot of free stuff!

We analysed the listings to discover which places in the UK are most generous when it comes to sharing and reusing.

Photo by Alex Bamford

Places with the most free stuff in the UK

Oxford is the most generous city in the UK, with over 5,200 items over the past year. Five Oxford neighbourhoods (Florence Park, Cowley, Abingdon, Headington Hill, and New Headington) taken on their own would all have made the top 20!

As well as lots of free home and office furniture, toys, kitchen equipment, plants, building materials and bicycle accessories, Trash Nothing users in Oxford gave away a candle snuff, pool table, dyson hoover, fire escape ladder, meals for hedgehogs and an upright piano.

Oxford volunteers, Sylvain and John said of the results:

“We are delighted that Oxford has done so well on Trash Nothing. This success is, of course, all thanks to the wonderful members and Freeglers. It’s so brilliant to see our community pulling together, helping each other out and getting things done - all at a local level.

Listing something you no longer need on TN or Freegle is such an easy thing to do, but it can make a huge difference to others. We see a wide range of items being offered in Oxford, from furniture and kitchen gadgets to clothing and surplus DIY materials. Our advice is: if you’re in doubt, don’t hesitate to list it; someone will almost always find a use for it.

We would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the incredible contribution of Andy Ludlow - who worked for several years as one of Oxford Freegle’s founding volunteer moderators. Andy sadly passed away in 2024. We are sure he would have been thrilled to know that, with his help, Oxford achieved such high levels of reuse in the past year, helping many people in the process.” –Sylvain and John, Oxford volunteers

Colchester, Reading and Oxford were all unexpected inclusions in the list as all have relatively small populations of about 200,000 people. Reading took second place, giving away approximately 4,000 items over the same time period.

London was surprisingly only in third place, with its community giving away almost half as many as the people of Oxford. The most active Trash Nothing communities in London are in outer districts, with Isleworth, Cheshunt, and Kenton East all well represented.

Eight out of the top ten areas are in the south of England, with Leeds and Manchester the other only UK cities making it into the top ten, while major cities such as Birmingham and Glasgow are missing.

What kind of items do people give away?

There is a lot of free furniture , making up nearly 1 in 5 of all items given away in the UK. That covers everything from tables and chairs to beds and office furniture. See our guide on ‘how to get free furniture’.

Books are the UK’s second most-shared item, with Oxford and Reading leading the way for book gifting.

Clothing is the fastest-growing category, especially in London and Brighton.

Will your town make our top 10 next year? That’s up to you! Sign up to Trash Nothing, join your local group and get busy decluttering.