The Free Shop

The shop where really everything is free

A shop where you can find everything and pay for nothing? It exists. At Circularium, a site around innovation and circular production covering more than 2 hectares in Anderlecht. How the shop works? You bring in your stuff there that you no longer use. See something you can use yourself? You take that in for free.

A shop full of used and worn items

Did you know that throughout Belgium there are 42 million unused household appliances in cupboards that still work perfectly? Reason enough for the initiators to open a shop where you can bring in and pick up all kinds of used and worn items. A sewing machine, a T-shirt, kitchen utensils... The Free Shop will accept all your things, as long as they are not broken, dirty, incomplete, dangerous or liable to spoil.

Up to 200 customers a day

"De Gratis Winkel was started as a neighbourhood initiative to raise awareness among local residents about circular economy," says Gerd De Wilde, initiator of De Gratis Winkel. "In the beginning, we worked with notes. The donor could leave a note for the future owner, and he in turn could write a thank-you note. But with the success the shop is having, this is no longer feasible. Every day, an average of 120 kilograms of items come in and 180 to 200 people come to collect items."

"We do limit the number of items you can take as a customer to one per day. Only for books and clothes do we make an exception. We get those in so much that people are allowed to take a few items at a time. So at three years, the Free Shop has become a cosy place where you meet a wide variety of people, question your way of consuming and put the circular economy into practice."