ZERO Library Of Things
What Is A Library Of Things?
A library of things functions in the same way as a traditional library - but instead of books, ZERO’s Library of Things lets you borrow useful equipment instead of buying it! This helps the Guildford community cut down on waste, avoid planned obsolescence, and moves us toward ending throwaway culture.
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What you can hire depends on what your local library of things chooses to stock, but at ZERO you can borrow gazebos, thermal imaging cameras, tools, coolboxes, camping equipment, and much more! And it's all completely FREE!
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Benefits Of A Library Of Things
ZERO Library of Things first customer!
When you think about how much you actually use a household item during its lifetime, you realise that often, it doesn't really make sense owning it for the small amount of use it gets.
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As an example, the average drill is used for only 13 minutes during its entire life time! Think about how many items you have at home collecting dust, but don’t want to get rid of…’just in case’. Once you assess what household ‘necessities’ you genuinely need, community share schemes become the obvious and practical answer for many household items.
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A 'Library of Things' reduces consumption and waste in the community - and by extension lowers manufacturing and transport emissions.
Tackling the climate and ecological crisis will require new ways of living and working, and these easy steps toward community ownership are an easy and logical first step. In turn, building collaborative communities like this has the potential to vastly reduce consumption emissions, waste going to landfill (particularly of harmful tech or electronic products), and can have a significant reduction in the ecological degradation associated with the destructive processes in material extraction.
In addition, a library of things ensures that all community members have access to essential equipment that they may not be able to buy. Furthermore, it means that residents who are struggling to store useful items have somewhere to keep their stuff, knowing that they’re not only helping their community but reducing emissions and waste in the local environment.
Guildford Library Of Things
If you're a Guildford local then you may know that our friends at Guildford Library already have a Library of Things! It’s on the top floor of the library, and it’s pretty popular! We're working with the, to try to offer items the library can't stock, so that the inventories compliment each other. We've duplicated some popular items, such as pressure washers, to ensure that between ZERO and the library one of us can help you. You can see Guildford Library's LoT inventory here.
What Does This Project Achieve?
Waste Reduction
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Emissions Reduction
Community Cohesion
What Problem Is This Addressing?
We all hate throwaway culture! It's one of the things we all agree on. But it's extremely hard to escape it in today's convenience society.
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This means we're often stuck in a cycle of buying unnecessary stuff, wrapped in plastic, which we often don't really need. The ZERO Library of Things is a community share scheme, which can help to reduce your waste and consumption, and save you money.
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In just 18 months, the Merton Library of Things has saved over 23,000 tons of waste going to landfill! And saved it's users around £40,000 in savings on items borrowed instead of bought.
Donating to ZERO's Library Of Things
If you have items that you think would be useful for the Library of Things, please get in touch with us today, we’d love to give it a good home! Please note that we can only except items in excellent condition, and you should speak to someone before coming into ZERO with an item, to ensure we can accept it.
You’ll be helping your fellow Guildfordians cut waste, save money, and tackle climate change. Win, win, win.