A blue shipping container in Levenshulme has everything you need. Want to clean your windows? There’s telescopic ladders. Want to play ‘When I’m cleaning windows’? There’s ukuleles. There’s projectors, a metal detector, lawnmowers, a leaf blower, pots, pans, and a tower fan. Hammers, banners and spanners. Even a thermal imaging camera.
The container is home to the Manchester Library of Things (MCRLOT) and it has a simple premise – provide the local community with a bevy of tools and household items at a low cost to try and combat waste and overproduction.
Based at Levenshulme Old Library, the lending scheme has a large collection of power tools and gardening equipment, but there’s also kitchen gadgets, camping gear, and party supplies available to hire for up to three weeks at a time.
When Maria Houlihan moved to Levenshulme in 2014 she needed tools to do some DIY around the house, but didn’t want to fork out hundreds of pounds for equipment she wasn’t likely to use again. “I saw other people doing LOTs and I just thought there should be something like this in Manchester,” she said.
The original UK Library of Things in London was established in 2014 and has since expanded to have 19 locations around the capital. One even has Amazon style lockers where items are dispensed.
Maria took a little longer to get the MCRLOT off the ground. “I thought about it. Then thought about it some more,” she laughed. “And then I finally did it. It took a few years to get it up and running, but it doesn’t feel like hard work now. It’s a community thing, but it benefits everyone.”
It launched last August, after a brief trial period amongst friends and family in July. Since then, they’ve managed to attract 700 sign ups and have loaned 481 items. The project was helped along by a crowdfunder that raised £6734 and by the Recycle for Greater Manchester Community fund.
Local MP for Rusholme Afzal Khan has signed up. And Former minister and WhatsApp enthusiast Andrew Gwynne was also complimentary about the scheme.
Pick-up and drop-off sessions are held on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings. You reserve the item you want online then pick it up the following week. To gain access to the library, you can either pay an annual subscription of £50, or pay-as-you-borrow – nearly all items are under £10 for a week. Students and people on low incomes have a discounted £20 a year fee.
At the launch of their Wednesday drop off sessions in Levenshulme Old Library, you can see the community building. People come in and exchange DIY tips or talk about their latest upcycling project over a cup of tea and cake.
Maria told me one man donated another powertool recently and said “If I ever need it again, I can just book it out.” That’s the type of ethos they’re striving to build in Levenshulme, a less wasteful, community-driven approach to using electrical appliances.
According to Material focus – a non-profit organisation campaigning against e-waste – we throw away 103,000 tonnes of electricals each year in Britain, with the North West responsible for 11,400 tonnes.
The campaigners also suggest that there are 880 million unused electrical items hiding away in British homes, all of which contain recyclable precious metals. By re-using and recycling these items carbon intensive extraction and manufacturing can be avoided.
“A lot of it is habit change,” said MCRLOT director Alice Collingwood. “It’s like ‘Ooo I need a hand sander. It’s on Amazon and it’s cheap.’ But they use it twice and then that’s it. It sits in the cupboard and it becomes obsolete.” Or it goes in the bin. Maria points to a pressure washer as another perfect example of a ‘once-a-year’ type item, that makes more sense to borrow than buy.
But the library doesn’t just focus on electrical products, by offering a wide range of things the idea is to drive consumption down. “One set of plastic plates for a kids party isn’t going to save the planet,” said Alice. “But it helps.”
As always with any lending scheme, you’re placing trust in people to return items, but thankfully they haven’t had too many issues on this front. Maria said: “Once a week someone forgets to bring something back, but it’s not been a hassle. It’s never been more than a week.”
With the launch of a second lending session, the library is looking to gain more members. More people means more funding and the ability to buy more expensive equipment that people request. It also helps to have more items being taken out – the container is starting to get a little cramped and the team might be forced to sell or recycle items.
Both women have bold hopes for the future of the LOT. Alice envisages an uber eats delivery type system. She said: “In the future we’d love to have hubs around Manchester and be able to deliver to people. But it’s just funding.”
Maria is also hoping to expand beyond the shed-like blue box. “One day I hope we’re in a space where we don’t have to lug stuff from a container. Like a nice shop front.”
Sure, the Manchester version of LOT doesn’t quite have the same Amazon-esque tech as its southern counterpart, but that doesn’t really matter. They’ve packed the blue shipping container with a mixture of purchased, recycled, and donated items from local people. Items that are now being put to good use and not sitting gathering dust in an attic somewhere.
The shopfront of Maria’s dreams may be a way off for now, but she and the team at MCRLOT are building a community of conscious consumers in Levenshulme and in the process, have found a way to repurpose the Old Library for their modern lending scheme.
Feature image: Luke Hewitt
Join the discussion