I read about the Swap-o-Matic just recently and was absolutely delighted to discover that its current residence is an ice cream shop about a ten-minute walk from my place in Brooklyn. How cool!

What is a Swap-o-Matic you may be asking … well, it’s a vending machine that lets you do tradesies.

The Swap-o-matic is a vending machine that encourages users to trade rather than buy! It playfully reminds us that reusing and recycling can be just as fun as buying something new.

I think it’s a really great idea so tonight Finn and I ventured down there. It wasn’t hard to talk him into the plan, the Swap-o-matic is housed at an artisan ice cream shop called Ample Hills Creamery afterall. Finn had an excellent dairy-free chocolate sorbet and I had a deep, dark chocolate ice cream – both were friggin’ amazing.

I wasn’t planning on trying the Swap-O-Matic tonight. In fact, I was just going to scope it out to come back with stuff later but Finn really wanted to make a trade. He had a ball in his school bag that he was ready to part with.

Here’s a little photo essay of our experience:

All in all I like the Swap-O-Matic conceptually and I give it a thumbs up — I’ll like it even more when more people start using it. I think I’ll go back next week and add a few of my bottlecaps.

http://www.swap-o-matic.com