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“Stuff” Steps: Use a sharing library!

Courtesy of www.EarthHero.org

Ease: Medium
Impact Rating (1-5): 2
Influence Beyond You: 2
Types of Impacts: Save Water, Reduce Plastics, Money saver, Save Energy, Time Saver, System change, Cultural Shift, Community Resilience, Reduce Paper, Resilience

Does it help with making your community resilient to disasters and emergencies? Yes. Less vulnerable to supply chain disruption, Less vulnerable to transportation issues, Community support, Be prepared to recover

Tags: Community, Home owner, Waste, Money, Recycling, Plastics, Consumerism, Renter, Infrastructure, Planning

Money Saved (1-4 $): $$$$

Description: A share library works like a regular library; but are just other things besides books – such as kids toys, pet toys, hardware and power tools, and even kitchen tools like stand mixers. They are there for the lending, instead of buying or renting them. Many of us have toys and tools we rarely use or may never use again. Why not share them? There can be specific types of share libraries, like Chicago’s (https://www.chicagotoollibrary.org/our-mission-and-goals), Baltimore’s (https://www.stationnorthtoollibrary.org/), or Washington DC’s (www.greenneighborsdc.org/projects) tool libraries, toy libraries (https://www.moneycrashers.com/toy-lending-libraries-exchanges/) or more general share libraries such as Brisbane’s (http://brisbanetoollibrary.org/), which also serves camping and sports gear..

If we share things instead of always buying new items, there is less extraction of the materials from natural resources, less to manufacture, and less transportation. This in turn leads to decreases in emissions on the one hand and big savings for those who would otherwise be buying or renting tools on the other. Share the wealth and ways to improve homes and lives!

A library can also easily lead to a repair cafe, tool workshops, gardening events, kids events and social gatherings. These libraries not only bring together tools and items for sharing and saving energy, but build community. They also provide a place for emergency items (like lanterns, water filters, etc.) for disaster situations. Support your local sharing library by joining and promoting!

An excellent article for understanding the benefits of shared libraries is: https://climatesteps.org/2020/09/03/a-tool-library-is-a-seed/.

Tips:

• A Google search can be a little bit of a hunt for libraries. Here’s a resource to help you find tool libraries: https://localtools.org/find/. For other types of libraries, try searching for “Toy Libraries” or “Libraries of Things.”

• And sometimes your local library already has a section of kids toys, or tools to check out.

• One great tool one can often check out at a regular library is an energy draw detector – plug your appliance into it and plug the tool into an outlet, and you can see what each appliance actually draws in terms of electricity.

 

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Image credit: Photo by Pixabay via Pexels.com

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