Freeconomy Wrexham's aim is to hold monthly bring and take events in communities across Wrexham county where people can bring unwanted household items such as furniture, computers, bric a brac and clothing and leave them for others who would like them to take free of charge.

"It's kind of like a swap shop but you don't have to bring anything or you don't have to take anything," said Freecycle Wrexham's James Whelan.

"It's a way of bringing communities together, using community resources, keeping things out of landfill sites and recycling."

Nationally the old fashioned good sense of recycling by passing unwanted items still in good condition to others has enjoyed a new lease of life thanks to websites such as freecycle.

Freeconomy Wrexham makes the idea accessible to everyone regardless of whether they have a computer or not.

"Freecycle is fantastic but not everyone has access to a computer and you've got to arrange to pick things up," said James.

"With Freeconomy you can see them an take them there and then. Community centres are not being used so this is also a way of using them and bringing people together to share ideas and make use of things.

"No money is exchanged and any donations made will go towards diesel for getting the items to the site and the hiring of community centres."

The first event is on Saturday, April 5, at Acton Community Centre from 9.30am to 12.30pm.

Freeconomy has already won a lot of support, with local churches banding together to provide refreshments on the day and skilled people such as washing machine and computer repairers offering to repair machines for free, and a mechanic offering training, space and tools for people to fix their cars themselves.

"We've had quite a lot of interest, everywhere we've left flyers people have said that they'll be there so we're expecting 300 to 400 people – it could be a big event," said James.

"We hope to hold one event a month in different villages across Wrexham and if it gets bigger people can set up their own Freeconomy in their own communities – the name is free for everybody to use."

To find out more or to volunteer your services email freeconomywrexham@yahoo.co.uk.