Задание 10 из ЕГЭ по английскому языку: задача 6

2. An initial environmental campaign

3. Growing freely

4. The problems while moving a place

5. Yours for the asking

6. Heavy-handed efforts

7. A less consuming idea

8. An excessive amount of things

A. As you know, moving always forces people to get rid of stuff you don’t need any more and eliminate vast amounts of clutter. Too much stuff fills up the garage or basement or whatever, and when all your storage space is gone, you rent a storage space. Of course, you can sell or give away your unneeded stuff, but finding a good home for it, and transporting the stuff to the new home, is often more trouble than it’s worth.

B. The excess stuff people have is, for the most part, perfectly good — just no longer needed. Random small appliances and electronic gadgets. Lots of books you’ve read and won’t read again. Clothes the kids have outgrown. Extra dishes from when you had time to throw dinner parties. The list goes on. These kinds of things would be too much bother to sell on eBay, and they’d make little or no money at a garage sale. But you don’t want to simply throw them away, either, because they could be useful to someone. But who needs these things?

C. The idea of freecycling is simplicity itself. You sign up online to join one or more groups in your local region. When you have something to give away, you post a message to the group, which appears on the group’s webpage and may also be delivered by email, according to each member’s preferences. Anyone else in that local group who wants it sends you a reply — and arranges transportation, if necessary. There are no trades or barters, and no strings attached. Everything is completely free, period. And, of course, if you need something that hasn’t already been posted on the list, you can ask for it.

D. Freecycling began in Tucson, Arizona in May 2003 as a way to help reduce the quantity of waste sent to landfills. Since then, it has spread to many thousands of local groups in more than 110 countries. From what I’ve read, though, it sounds like most participants aren’t doing it for the environment. They’re doing it because it’s a convenient and free way to get rid of things you don’t need or acquire things you do. If it happens to keep landfills from overflowing too, hey, that’s a lovely bonus.

E. But all is not peace and goodwill in the world of freecycling. For starters, there’s the term Freecycle itself, which was at the center of a trademark dispute a number of years ago, as the organizers of The Freecycle Network tried to prevent other organizations from using the term, and also fought against the use of freecycling as a verb. The organization lost that trademark battle in the United States in 2010, although the name freecycle.org is now trademarked.

F.But whether under the auspices of The Freecycle Network, as part of another organization, or informally among members of a school, church, or other group, the freecycling concept is a great idea — sort of like Craigslist, but only for free stuff. In some urban areas, I’m sure you could furnish an entire apartment in a week or two by freecycling, not only saving money but doing a great favor to the people who need to get rid of their stuff.

G. Increasingly, too, there’s been quite a backlash against consumerism and its associated clutter, as people begin to realize that they’re actually happier with less stuff than with more. Even though I don’t buy a lot of merchandise, as I look around my home, I realize that I’ve only used, or even thought about, maybe 10% of its contents in the last year. Do I really need the other 90%? When I find possessions that no longer enrich my life in any way, at least I can let them enrich someone else’s life.