Humbug. Technology changes everything.

A bunch of technophiles log onto the Internet, start trading their unwanted stuff for somebody else’s unwanted stuff, and they get hosannas for inventing something with the hip name “freecycling.”

Sounds like a swap shop to us.

For our money (or the complete lack thereof) there are few things finer than scrounging for swap shop swag. Every dump should have one, because in Maine, the “transfer stations” are more than places to dispose refuse.

They’re places to connect with neighbors, new friends and old acquaintances. Hang around enough, you’ll definitely learn something. Whether or not this knowledge is useful, though, is debatable.

But you’ll pick it up, nonetheless. Swap shops work on the same principle.

The best ones are set back, away from the odors of the real garbage, to create a priceless (literally) shopping environment. Some are portraits of confusion, with piles of mismatched items waiting for exploration.

Others, thanks customarily to dedicated volunteers, are organized with department store fastidiousness. Clothing is sorted, dishes are stacked, toys are in one corner, the books in the other and the lawn equipment and children’s bicycles are rowed neatly out front.

Like Alice’s Restaurant, patrons can get anything they want, as long as it’s there, of course. Swap shops also throw the old saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” into reverse; the shop works because items are more valuable to the taxpayer doing the disposing than the shopper doing the prospecting.

This is the strongest argument behind swap shops. There’s little sense, these green days, to toss good items away to be incinerated when somebody else could use them.

It makes less sense for transfer stations to facilitate excess disposal by failing to provide alternatives. Municipal waste disposal is expensive; every pound saved is worth the added effort of monitoring a swap shop.

They do make an impact. Smaller towns like Buckfield and Sabattus shave about 20 tons of waste annually. Yet only about one-third of dumps have swap shops – 137 of the 308 in Maine – despite a total waste diversion of an estimated 4,000 tons in 2006, according to state data.

Most of all, they’re easy. Most towns lack curbside pickup, which means trips to the dump are weekly (at least) occurrences. The market is there. All it takes is an old shed or trailer (probably something that was disposed itself) to open shop for swappers.

Those digital types can have their freecycling. We’ll take a cup of strong coffee, a Saturday morning trip to the tip and a quick browse through the swap shop.

Some things are better the old-fashioned way.