One Saturday afternoon, I was rudely awakened from a post-lunch power nap by the muffled shrieking of an alarm somewhere in the living room. It had been happening at the same time, every day, for more than a month, but I had yet to discover the source of that annoying digital ring.

The thing was, between the shelves stuffed with CDs, books and knickknacks, the stacks of magazines and newspapers on the floor, and other stuff, I just couldn’t find the source. It was a sign that the volume of things in my one-bedroom apartment had hit critical mass.

After groggily rooting around again, I finally found the culprit: A small, Personal Digital Assistant, or PDA, that someone had passed on to my wife after he or she couldn’t figure out how to use it. Despite detailed instructions, we, too, had failed to grasp how to operate the handheld gizmo. It had wound up hidden behind a box containing a slightly used set of cobalt blue Tefal cookware that had been sitting by the front door ever since we received a newer, all-steel set for Christmas.

Standing there, I resolved both things had to go. Surely, someone could use the PDA and pans. And, to get rid of them, I decided to try a new means of disposal. I’d “freecycle” or give away my things at www.freecycle.org.

Launched just over a year ago, “freecycling” enables people to get rid of the stuff they don’t want and pick up the stuff they do, whether it’s a laptop battery, used cat carrier or clipped coupon for laundry detergent.

The free online service is literally sweeping out closets (including mine), attics, basements, garages and barns. To date, one million people have joined “freecycle” communities across the nation and around the world. In Maine, more than two dozen freecycling groups have sprung from Cumberland to Aroostook County.

Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York, says many Americans are becoming overwelmed by possessions and freecycling is a direct result of that phenemenon. People, he notes, are far more mobile and it’s not uncommon to live in many different places over the course of a lifetime.

“In some ways, your stuff is the one continuity in your life,” Thompson observes. “If you are, say, 30 years old and you’ve moved many times in your life, you don’t have the connection to where you live they way your parents might have.”

At times, Americans do part with some things whether it’s through eBay, a spring yard sale, trip to the dump or dropoff at Goodwill. Now there’s a new alternative: freecycling. For the waste-conscious, it’s a great way to get rid of that flopping, singing mounted fish your wildcard relative gave you as a gag gift and other impractical and useful things that lurk in dust-collecting oblivion.

In 2003, freecycling got started as a grassroots effort to cut down on waste and curb the growth of local landfills in Tucson, Ariz.

Deron Beal founded the first freecycle group in Tuscon.

“After our group grew to be a couple hundred people without completely falling apart,” he recalls, “that’s when I knew we were on to something big.”

“First, it’s very easy for tree huggers like myself to start up a group in their area with the ideas of reducing and reusing in mind,” he continued. “And second, it’s easy for people to get rid of stuff. It plays to a lot of different areas. And it affirms that we bipeds are giving people, which is nice. Because if we weren’t, [freecycling] just wouldn’t work.”

With a winter yard sale out of the question, I decided to give freecycling a whirl.

For me, letting go of anything involves the “What if … ” factor. “What if I need it some day,” I ask myself, examining a dusty textbook or looking through the smeared glass of an empty aquarium.

Freecycling helps change the question to “What if someone needs this right now?” Think of it as an altruistic eBay, with folks putting the gems (and the junk) they no longer have use for into the hands of those who do – for free.

To freecycle, the first step is getting a free membership through Yahoo. Then you join a freecycling group in your city, region or state. Once registered, and in possession of a password and user ID, members can post listings for items they seek or want to give away.

The rules? Generally speaking, everything must be given away. The items must be legal and appropriate for all ages, so forget unloading any guns, back issues of Playboy etc. New members are also asked to give away something as their first posting. Some groups have adopted additional rules.

The Bangor group, for instance, allows the freecycling of cats, gerbils and other pets, while many other groups do not.

Once I understood the basic rules, I joined the Bangor group, which boasts 700 members. I immediately began browsing listings for everything from computer parts to baby clothes. Certainly, I concluded, someone would have use for our PDA and spare set of pans. With a few key strokes and mouse clicks, I posted my items. My offer simply read “Tefal pan set and handheld PDA.”

The response was immediate and overwhelming. In a few hours, dozens of people had replied to my posting. A few more trickled in before I sent the required follow-up message stating that the items had been taken.

Jaci Lapointe, who belongs to the Bangor group, was browsing online for bargains when she happened upon freecycling.org. The 25-year-old woman is recovering from a car accident and hasn’t been able to work in recent months.

While searching for free stuff on the Internet, she chanced upon the freecycling Web site. Since then, she’s obtained free clothes for her infant and computer equipment for her husband.

Lapointe, who runs the Bangor group, notes most of the postings reflect practical needs in hard, economic times.

“We get some posts saying things like ‘Let’s keep things out of dumps,'” she related, refering to environmentally conscious freecyclers. “But at the same time, it’s more practical. If someone needs a kitchen table, it just makes sense that you give it to them.”

Karen Kasprzak says freecycling has helped her provide for her family. The 36-year-old woman and her husband have 9 children with No. 10 expected in July.

“I figured my family could benefit from what someone else didn’t need or want,” Kasprzak said in an e-mail. “I used to scan Uncle Henry’s free section all the time. The freecycling groups have pretty much replaced that for me.” Kasprzak, who home schools her children, found out about freecycling through an international Catholic women’s organization. She belongs to about a dozen freecycle groups, and joined the Bangor freecycling group as soon as it formed.

“I have picked up several school desks, a great set of Ikea bunk beds, a practically new mountain bike, a computer desk, and some hard-to-find books for home schooling,” she wrote. “So far I have given away various computer components and children’s toys. I hope to give more come spring.”

When you freecycle, you pick the party to whom you give your items. No rules or guidelines about this are provided. When I had to decide who would get my goodies, I concluded it was only fair to give them to the first person who responded to my posting. The woman named Michelle said her church could use the pans and she wanted the PDA to get more organized.

Michelle and I arranged to meet by the newspaper’s back door. She lugged off my Tefal pans and the PDA and I got a little more space and that shrill noise out of my life.

Michelle’s husband, I discovered, happens to work at the NEWS. It’s a small, cluttered world after all.

For more information visit www.freecycle.org.