Borrow Don’t Buy

Izzy: Hello and welcome to the Carbon Copy Podcast with me, Isabelle Sparrow. We’re back with another episode of our year-long series, Do Something Bigger, where every fortnight we explore a different big local action for climate or nature that you can take together with others in the place where you live or work. Today’s episode is called Borrow, Don’t Buy and I’m delighted to be joined by special guest co-host Isabel Mack, founder of Party Kit Network CIC. Hi Isabel. 

Isabel: Hello, thanks for having me. 

Izzy: Now, I’m not quite sure how I’ve managed to find yet another Isabel. This is the second episode of the year that’s had two of us at the helm. I’ll be Izzy for this one so as not to confuse everyone. 

Now, the world of borrowing has certainly moved on in the last few decades. Most people will be familiar with book libraries, but there are now lots of options for borrowing other stuff: tools, clothes, even toys and games. Isabel, before we meet our guests, can you tell me a bit about the Party Kit Network and how you came to set it up? 

Isabel: Sure, thank you. So, the Party Kit Network is a social enterprise. Our mission is to help make reusable tableware more accessible and to avoid waste from single-use items, mainly at parties. So, the way it works, the Party Kit is a box of reusable tableware. It has cups and plates in. It might have other things like bowls and decorations or party games even. It’s hosted by someone within the community. You borrow it for your event and then you give it back again. So, it’s a peer-to-peer sharing initiative and it works because it’s really adaptable. It’s cost-effective. It’s normally the same or less than buying the equivalent disposables and it’s actually really joyful as well. 

Izzy: And why did this issue kind of come into your life? What was it that made you think, oh yeah, that’s something I need to do? 

Isabel: It was all quite accidental. So, I was listening to a podcast by Jen Gale called Sustainable(ish). She’d interviewed a lady called Tilly who ran a Party Kit in Frome. And for me, at that point in my life, I was like, this is such a simple solution. It solves the problem of how do you access a large quantity of reusable tableware for a party that you might only have once or twice a year. I think particularly at the time, my son had just turned two and was entering that phase of endless children’s parties. And I was starting to look at the amount of waste that came from parties. So, it was really like the right time and the right place. So, I started to set out to see is there a Party Kit near me? And that led me on the journey to set up the network to help other people solve that problem of how do I access reusable tableware? 

Izzy: So, I mean, it’s just lovely, and I think we’ve come across this in quite a few of the podcast episodes that we’ve done, that you just saw the thing that was wrong and just did something about it. And I think some people would find that quite a challenge even just to kind of drop everything and do something. Like, what is it that you think, what helped you get over that initial fear, if there was any initial fear of doing something like this? 

Isabel: Yeah. So, I think when I set out, I didn’t know what social enterprise was. I didn’t know what it meant by having community initiative. I didn’t really know that much about waste reduction. I just saw this as a solution to a problem. And I think my background, so I used to work in e-commerce, spent a lot of time looking at how information is presented. So, I had a lot skills that enabled me to help solve that problem. And the kind of growth of it into the network that it is today was really organic. So, I started out by, I just wanted to create a spreadsheet with a list of party kits. And then I was like, oh, we should put it on a website. And then someone said, oh, we should have a Facebook group. So, we set up a Facebook group. So, it was really organic. And I never sat down. There isn’t a big business plan. There wasn’t a big vision. It was just as we came across problems, like how can we solve this? How can we help more people do it? 

Izzy: Yeah. I think we’re going to find that that’s actually a story that’s quite common amongst some of our guests as well. Our first guest today is someone that you actually introduced me to. It’s Becky Harford, who’s co-founder of Benthyg Cymru. For those of you who are not Welsh speakers, Benthyg means both borrow and lend in Welsh, making it the perfect name for this network of Welsh libraries of things. 

Becky: A library of things is a place where you can borrow things that you need but don’t own or donate things that you own but don’t need and come together with your community to share those things, essentially. And in Wales, in our network, we have got people sharing everything from farm machinery. So, Carmarthenshire Machinery share small farm machinery for people who want to grow their own food on small holdings. We’ve got places that share school uniforms. So, we kind of can support and do support all different types of sharing within the kind of label library of things. So, it can be literally anything. So, like a book library but a thing library and we track the most popular items across the network and stuff like that. So, we can have an idea of, you know, what the most popular things are. 

We try to keep things affordable for people because, you know, we recognise that there is a cost of living crisis ongoing still but we don’t dictate to communities how they price their things or what things are available or anything like that. But our main thing that we do kind of want people to do in the network is to make sure that their model is inclusive and accessible to the people in their community. So, it’s very people-centred and place-centred. 

Izzy: Yeah. So, that sort of people-centred, place-centred approach is something, again, common to a lot of the kind of borrowing initiatives that we are going to speak about and it’s definitely relevant in our next example. So, Chris Hellawell is the founder and director of Edinburgh Tool Library. Here he is explaining how the organisation grew from humble beginnings. 

Chris: It was my original sort of scheme. I was actually, so it’s 10 years ago, we turned 10 last year and I was working in a national Scottish charity working with people with learning disabilities and supporting them into employment. So, with that, I looked at, we had a gardening project that we were doing already. So, you know, using tools and I’d sort of looked at the idea of tool libraries as a, you know, as a common or relatively established model in North America at that point but there weren’t any in the UK and was interested in, you know, sort of bringing that social value to my community. But educationally, my background is in environmental science and sort of forest ecology and things like that. So, I had done a lot of my research on, you know, sort of copper footprints and things like that. So, I had a sort of knowledge of the environmental side of things that wasn’t present in the North American model. The North American model was all, you know, about practicalities and saving people money and a very, there’s a very strong DIY culture in North America.  

Originally, when we started up, it was a bit of a pilot. There’s lots of old disused police boxes in Edinburgh. So, you know, like the TARDIS. And we, there’s somebody who was advertising, oh, you know, this is a pop-up location for you to try, you know, whatever business model you want to do. You know, you rent it by the hour kind of thing. So, it was very low risk for me personally. And so, once we got the sort of charitable status and we accepted some donations of tools, we had a, you know, sort of a full kit for people to borrow. We used an online platform so people could book ahead. So, we were only ever, you know, when we first started out, it wasn’t that there’s hundreds of tools going out every week. It was a couple of bags worth of equipment, but it meant we could put all of the equipment on there and then we only take the tools that are booked. And so, we’re using a reservation system. So, it was very easy. And it’s, with it being a bit of an iconic building, we call it, spot, but also it’s on the main bus route. It’s on the main thoroughfare. It was really like great for handing out flyers and getting people to sort of chat with us and find out what we’re doing.  

And, you know, from there, it grew and grew. And after probably a year or so, it became something that I focused on. And we’ve, you know, we’ve, since then we’ve built, we’ve got workshops. We have multiple library spaces. We do outreach work. We’ve got eight members of staff now. We have about 80 volunteers doing lots of different things in the sort of reuse and repair space as well as sort of sharing things. So, yeah, it’s really going great guns. 

Isabel: Chris’s journey is, has a lot of in common with how I feel, definitely. I really enjoy running the Party Kit network. It’s sometimes really hard, especially doing something that’s a new, well, old way of doing things. In our current world, we don’t always fit. We don’t always tick the right boxes. And that is a real challenge. But it is something that is really joyful. Connecting with people all over the world has been amazing. 

Izzy: At the moment, is it just you? Do you have anyone that like, helps out with it in terms of like, how it all runs? Or is it, is it just a one man band, one woman band? 

Isabel: I do most of the day-to-day work on the network. So I do all the admin, I do all the finance, all our comms, that kind of thing. But we do have a board. So there’s five other people on the board who have a range of skills and time available to help me. Plus, I’m very lucky that I work with Erin Rhoads in Australia, who donates her time to working with us and her vast experience of working on reuse schemes, and campaigns. And plus, I’ve got 600 members that can help me as well. So yeah, it is a team effort. But day to day, I am responsible. 

Izzy: And that network of 600 members, who are these people? And like, why have they come to this? And like, what information do you have about the kinds of people that have started a Party Kit? Throughout all of it, there’s always a common thread, and that is avoiding waste. Like everybody is passionate about the opportunity to help their communities avoid waste. And I think that’s really, it’s demonstrated in our Facebook group, in that we have quite a diverse membership. Yeah, they’ve all got something to talk about, they’ve all got something to share. And it’s quite a collaborative experience. We don’t have specific data on membership demographics or users’ demographics. But anecdotally, we do have quite a wide variety. 

And our kits are run in multiple ways, which helps this. So they might be run by someone from home, like how I run my Party Kit. It might be someone who runs it on behalf of a school PTA. It might be part of a library of things. It might be as part of a toy library, or a nappy library, or a zero-waste shop. Or it might be a scheme run by a local council. We see a lot more of those during this year. So there’s a real variety of people and organisations who have Party Kits, it might be the main thing they do, or it might be an add on service to something they’re already doing, particularly if they have an environmental interest, or perhaps work with children, for example. 

Izzy: It’s lovely to connect with other people about, you know, around these issues that really matter to us. And that connecting with other people around issues is something that has led you to becoming part of the Re-Action Collective. I just wondered if you could tell me a little bit about that before we hear from Gav, who’s obviously the founder. 

Isabel: So as part of my role within Party Kit Network, we joined the Re-Action Collective last year. I’d followed Re-Action Collective for a little while, because my friend Rebecca Heaps is a member. And they are all about promoting reuse, repair and sharing initiatives, particularly within the outdoor space. So they bring together a whole heap of organisations who all have their shared mission. And honestly, it’s been one of the most uplifting things I’ve done. Quite often, when you run a network, even though there’s 600 members, it can be quite lonely. And sometimes overcoming challenges is hard when you’re on your own. 

But since joining the Re-Action Collective, having a team of cheerleaders basically to help you has been massively beneficial to me. 

Izzy: Yeah, it’s a very special thing. Let’s hear from Gavin Fernie-Jones about some of the members who are championing borrowing and lending as part of this. 

Gav: Two and a half years ago, we set up the Re-Action Collective with five founder members. And now we have close to 70. We’ve got a few members that are doing stuff that are around borrowing, and more specifically, borrowing from a peer-to-peer aspect, not so much as setting up a business and lending stuff to the public, but trying to encourage the public to lend to each other. So we’ve got Tentshare, which is a brilliant organisation set up by Rebecca. And the idea behind that is that we all have tents sat in our houses, and we might not use them. I know I probably use my tent two or three weeks a year. And is there a way that we can take that asset that’s already made? It’s had all the materials, all the impacts from creating that product. Are there other ways for us to get more use out of that? Can we lend it to people within our community or from further afield? 

What I love about that approach is when you’re borrowing from someone, there’s more attached to that. So say I’m borrowing a tent. I might be travelling to the UK, and rather than taking a tent with me, I borrow a tent. When I get there, that person that bought the tent might be able to tell me a great place to camp in that vicinity. They might be able to tell me great walks to go on. So there’s this transaction beyond the material transaction. There’s this transaction of thoughts and ideas and relationships, really. And then we’ve also got the Party Kit Network, which I think you know well about. And what Isabel’s done there is an amazing organisation that has spread globally in an incredibly short amount of time around this idea of building party kits in your community and lending them out. It’s incredibly powerful. It’s kind of a gateway into lending and borrowing. And yeah, it’s something that’s happened and spread across the globe. And I think the lovely thing in Re-Action is, so for someone to be a member of the collective, for an organisation to join, there’s no costs. This is a space for coming together and sharing ideas and working on stuff. So we kind of bring all our stuff together and create. 

So we’ve created guides around how to create reports. We’ve created guides around the reimagined or the alternative high street. Isabel’s been a really big influence in creating all that. And so yeah, this is a space where we come together and share all this idea and sort of unlock what a sharing economy and sharing community could look like. 

Izzy: Gav mentioned the alternative high street, which I’ve been hearing a lot about recently. Can you give us a bit of background on that and your involvement in it? 

Isabel: The idea for the alternative high street came from Rebecca. And it’s really around providing a space that champions sharing, repairing, repurposing and reusing. And she had this vision of she wanted a place that people could come and understand what the benefits of these different things are and how it could help them. And so we ran a trial at the Better Business Summit in January in Manchester. So we, on very short notice, we created this big pop-up and had all these kind of different initiatives demonstrated. And one of the things that we asked was that people who visited the summit brought with them a garment that needed repairing. So it might have been a jumper or a t-shirt or a jacket. And during the summit, their items got repaired by people on site. 

But what was really interesting was that someone might have bought a jacket and it got repaired. And that’s amazing because that means that they can carry on using that jacket and it extends its life. But what we actually got to share was their story. So how did they get the jacket? Where have they used the jacket? Why is it important to them? And actually, it was an experience that was so much more joyful than I anticipated. It was absolutely amazing. I really loved it. 

Izzy: That is a really beautiful thing. And I think that is the thing with reuse, with repair. And also with borrowing as well. You hear about the stories of the items that are being borrowed and lent and all that kind of thing. We are going to hear a bit more about that from Becky later, so I’m going to hold off on talking any more about that one. But it’s a beautiful thing.  

Do you know someone who might want to lend their ears to this episode? Perhaps there’s a few ideas in here that you and your community could borrow. Well, in the spirit of sharing, why not share this episode? You never know, you could help make your place a more circular one. 

So it’s really exciting to think of this change in approach. You know, we have existed, well, I’ve certainly existed my entire life in a capitalist society and in one that is, you know, focused very much on individual gains. And this idea of sharing and borrowing becoming more mainstream is just very, very exciting. Both Becky and Chris have seen the appetite for the sharing economy in Wales and in Scotland respectively grow and develop. But I think one thing that we haven’t necessarily mentioned as much is around inclusivity. So a lot of the time with green projects, “green projects”, should I say, there is a bit of a stereotype of the end user being white, being middle class, being a guardian reader. It’s kind of describing myself. But actually, there is a lot of potential within these projects to involve loads of different people. 

There’s no rule that says that only those kinds of people can benefit or use a library of things or a tool library or a party kit. So at the end of the day, a lot of it is about saving money, right? So saving money, you know, if that is your reason for borrowing instead of buying, so be it. You know, at the end of the day, it results in the same thing, which is that someone doesn’t have to buy a new thing, that new thing doesn’t have to be created. And there’s also an education and training angle because certainly with the tool library, with some of the items that are available from the library of things, people can, you know, try something new for the first time and not have to necessarily buy the thing in order to try it so they can learn how to use something new. At Edinburgh Tool Library, they’ve conducted a survey of all their members, and this has given some really fascinating insights into the kinds of people that get involved and their reasons for doing so. 

Chris: In terms of the people that we reach, what is incredibly valued by our members and in terms of the sort of feedback from that survey, the most significant thing that people like about the tool library is the advice and the support they get from volunteers. So whether that is reassurance, you know, this is how this is what I want to do, this is how I’m planning to do it. Does that make sense? And someone just going, like, yes, go for it. You’ve, you’ve ordered the right tools. Or whether it is this is my thing I want to do, I’ve no idea where to start. Is that too big a project? Is you know, you know, what do I need to know before I do that? That has been hugely important. And it’s reflected in the fact that, you know, our outreach work, and so we do lots of partnership work with other charities, which we specifically target groups who have been underserved by, you know, the sort of DIY culture. 

So people who are pushed out of that space or not being included in that space, or, you know, so whether that is working in the trades, or just, for example, we have 63% female membership or of people who identify male and female, 63% of those are female. We are over overrepresented in the LGBTQ plus community, because we do outreach work specifically with them. And we talk about it. And yes, those participants come to join us. But also they talk to their friends and their advocates in in the community. 

We have 27% of our members identify having as having a disability. Now, in Scotland, it’s about one in five. So that’s overrepresenting. But also, when you’re talking about DIY, it would, it wouldn’t be a huge shock if it was underrepresented in terms of physical disabilities, and just, you know, some tools just cannot be used by some people. But that’s because of the community we’ve built around it. And the deliberate way that we’ve sought out the people that don’t that haven’t been served. 

So we looked at these member surveys, we also looked at big part of what the tool library contributes is about people who don’t have support networks for whom they can share things and borrow things. So about 54% of Edinburgh is white Scottish, it’s about 30% in our membership of 30 something or 30s. We you know, we have a lot of people who’ve who are either, you know, from other parts of the world or from other parts of the UK who don’t have the support network where they can go I’ll ask dad or ask my brother or sister or, you know, man, I don’t know anybody in the neighbourhood. So I’ve moved into the area for work or for whatever reason, I don’t have someone I can borrow this for. Therefore, they come to the library. And that’s, that’s another really important thing in terms of building social cohesion and building community around around the tool library. 

Izzy: It seems that the reception in Wales has been equally as strong. Here’s Becky with more about this and about how she and her team have been exploring different ways to grow local enthusiasm for libraries of things. 

Becky: I think you like anybody will tell you and you’ll find if you ever talk to anybody about a library of things, they’ll be like, wow, that’s such a good idea. You know, and I think that translated then and people there was so much interest with with not just people borrowing stuff, but people like donating stuff and, and, you know, really wanting to get involved and share their skills and, you know, popping in and being like, oh, if you’ve got in, well, if you’ve got in, we had some like, incredible stuff donated. I remember in the first thing, like looms and like beer making kits and just really cool stuff, which you wouldn’t really, you know, you might not have enough money to buy or might not have storage for, or, you know, for a million other reasons. You want to like, you like trying out hobbies, but you don’t want to like buy it every time. 

So it was like incredible. And like I said, you know, there was people were coming to us all the time then seeing what we were doing, but like, we want one, we want one. How do we do it? How do we do it? So we knew that there was this real big kind of, I don’t know, like, urge, surge of people wanting to like do it for their communities. And, you know, it’s really, it’s really interesting because, you know, at Benthyg, we do support now like small volunteer run organisations, but we’ll also support a local authority wanting to roll it out across the whole area. So we’ve really seen like a range of what it means to have and build and have a library of things in your community, but always, always is an amazing response from, from like communities. It is, it is needed. Although sometimes, you know, the concept is it is new and everyone thinks it’s the, the concept is brilliant, but sometimes that doesn’t always translate into people actually borrowing, but we are seeing borrowing numbers rise. 

We did a few like experiments around, you know, messaging and stuff last year across the network. So we’re kind of looking at what, what is it that will draw people in? And we found that, you know, the cost saving messages like is big at the moment unsurprisingly because of, you know, the context in which we’re living at the moment. So we’ve been focusing on, on that a little bit. Yeah. So we’re just trying to, and it’s very much, you know, going back to our model works is people led and place led, it’s very much us trying to support hyper locally rather than it being a big thing. But we do also recognise that we are actually quite unique in the world as Benthyg Cymru, the way that we’ve done this and the way that we’re so supported in Wales by government as well. So it’s those kinds of two avenues that we’re going down. So the really hyper local, getting people in and word of mouth is always, is always the one, you know, we know from behaviour change stuff, that one of the number one things that will drive that is seeing your neighbours and people you know, and your immediate family doing, doing that thing. So it’s that really focusing on that community element, that hyper local, yeah. In, in communities really. 

Borrowing is much more than just like borrowing a drill to put up your shelves. Yes, it definitely is that, you know, our most popular item is a carpet cleaner. So it’s very practical things, but it can be more than just practical things. Like what, if you want to have like a, close your street off and have a street party or a block party and your block of flats or whatever, come and borrow the games for the kids. You know, it doesn’t have to be this very practical. I need to do this. It can be nice things as well. It can be the really nice things that you want to have. Like we’ve got a partnership project in Newport called remake with Repair Cafe Wales. And we work really close with, because obviously repair and reuse go like really hand in hand, you know, one feeds the other kinds of thing. And they’ve got a wedding section in their catalogue, you know, so people can borrow really cool like arches and photo frames and, you know, all of those kinds of stuff, which obviously usually people get married once. I’m not saying that it’s every time, but like you use it once, don’t you? You don’t, you’re not going to need it again and again and again. 

So it’s really trying to get people to think in that way of like, actually, am I only going to use this once? Like, is it better for me? I can save some money and it’s, you know, much better for the environment for me to, for these items to be used by lots of different people. And then they have stories as well, which is like lovely. You know, I remember enough, the first one in Romney where we piloted this, we had a birthing pool and some, you know, we had a Benthyg baby, you know, like these stories are really beautiful. And yeah, like reminding people, it’s not just that practical thing. It’s like, there’s, we can find this, the joy in this as well. And because they’re always run by communities, it’s like, it’s that, you know, making that, that point that this is for you and your community. And like, it’s getting to know your neighbours as well. It’s wellbeing. It’s like, we have so much feedback from, from the network saying that they’ve got like volunteers who it really helps with their wellbeing. 

It’s about connecting with the community, which is healthier communities. Like this, you know, borrowing can affect every part of the thing. You know, it is, it can make us happier. 

It can make us healthier. It saves us money. You know, it’s just, yeah, I just want to get a message out there, you know, that we can, we can do this. 

Izzy: I love how enthusiastic she is. I also love that they have been Benthyg babies. That’s very cute. But like, yeah, like the enthusiasm is, is like palpable. And like, I assume you feel the same. I mean, you’ve mentioned joy a lot. And it’s, it is so nice to hear that it’s, it is so much more than just a kind of initiative about the environment, really, it’s about everything else as well. 

Isabel: It’s not just a transaction. I think I very quickly learned how disconnected our communities are. And that’s one of the reasons people get really excited when they first set up a party kit, but often they find it really hard to find people to use it. And that is because we’re so disconnected. And I think the joy that Becky’s talking about there is that what happens when you reconnect people. And I just love, particularly with party kits, often when I’m handing it over, it might be going to a small kids birthday party and sharing a little bit of that enthusiasm and what I call the party sparkle is really lovely. So it is definitely community initiatives do have so much more to offer than simply avoiding waste and saving money. 

Izzy: Yeah, absolutely. We spoke to Chris about what people should do if they want a tool library where they live. And here he is with his advice. 

Chris: I think when, you know, whenever people come to ask us about, oh, I want to set up a tool library, you know, you know, how do I, how do we do this? I always, you know, what I always say to them is that, you know, like we will give you advice about the tool library side of things, but you are the experts on your community. So, so anything that we talk about in terms of the outreach or the communities that we work with, you know, take that, take that as a, as a testimony in terms of how we do it, but don’t, you know, don’t necessarily apply that directly to your community because you’re, you know, your community better, you know, whether that would work, you know. That’s why you should be doing this and not coming to ask me to do it in your community because, you know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t necessarily translate perfectly. So, yeah. 

Izzy: So before we sum up, I just wanted to go back to Gav to hear his thoughts about how improvements to policy and legislation could help take borrowing and sharing mainstream. 

Gav: There’s a few bits of policy that I see would be really helpful and really important to what we do. So that vision of the alternative high street, what we’re doing with it at the moment is trying to turn up at different spaces that might be like a university or a festival or a conference and demonstrate it to people. So turn up and bring all our sewing machines and bring all this stuff that we can share and hand out and bring the whole vision to life in a space, because at the minute it’s actually very difficult to build on the high street. And there’s a few reasons for that. One, we need to do something about the cost of the product in the original, when the original purchase. 

So take something like a tent in that shared economy. You can buy a tent now that is advertised as single use. It literally says on the website, this is a single use tent, for 20 quid. So say you’re going to a festival the weekend, are you going to rent a tent that’s going to cost more than 20 quid and you’re going to have to be involved with all the stuff that’s, meet someone which I think is a great benefit, but some people will see as a barrier to use? Or are you just going to buy that 20 quid tent online and just leave it at the festival? And so I think there’s a lot of legislation that needs to come in to attach the real costs to these products when we buy them in the first place. You know, that 20 quid tent isn’t including the environmental cost. It isn’t including the labour costs truly. It isn’t including the impact of transporting that across the world. It isn’t including the impact of disposing of that product when you’ve left it at a festival at the end. So we do need some legislation to come in to really support the circular economy and its growth. 

And likewise on the high street, you know, rents and rates are expensive. And when you’re in repair, for example, on the high street, there’s a lot of labour costs involved in someone doing a repair. And so we need to make these things financially more attractive through legislation. And so no, I think our job is to exist in that place of possibility and create as much as possible as a demonstration to the legislation and to the wider public that something different could exist. And can we shape some legislation that will come in to support that? Like what do we need to make that a reality? 

Isabel: I think what Gav’s saying about the cost of items, like it’s ridiculous that a tent can cost only £20. Like the amount of resource that goes into that, the labour costs, the welfare of the people working on that product is just so hidden from us and has become so disposable. I think we definitely need legislation around what can be marketed as reusable. We’ve definitely seen with the ban on single-use plastic items, a lot of reusable items are not actually that durable. So we definitely need clearer guidelines around what as a minimum a product has to have in order to be reusable and how repairable it is as well. 

I also think we need better access to insurance that meets our needs. We need access to better funding. I’m sure Becky and Chris will both agree with that. And I think we also need to look at, as a society, how we view borrowing. It’s become, particularly for the white middle-class Guardian readers that we were talking about earlier, ownership has become a status symbol. Like it’s a sign of success. How much you own demonstrates how successful you are, but actually that’s not made us happy. And I think a lot of other demographics and cultures have already realised that borrowing gives you not only better value, but also so much more. 

Izzy: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the very fact that we’ve got these amazing stories on here today. We’ve got the amazing story of the Party Kit network. We’ve got all the other organisations in Re-Action Collective. And I really love that kind of demonstration of hope that Gav was talking about there. And I think that is basically what Carbon Copy is about. Our whole idea really is just to showcase the possibility of a different way of living and a different way of society existing. And there are so many of these examples. We have picked a handful of excellent ones, but there are so many examples of people who are taking this stuff into their own hands and enabling people to access really great stuff without having to buy it. And just the fact that that is available in so many places is hopeful. 

So as always, we’re going to end with what we’ve learned. So I’ve learned that there is absolutely no limit to the things that can be borrowed or shared. The things that you borrow don’t have to be practical things like tools or appliances. They can be things just for fun, like games or sports kits or beer brewing kits. I’ve also learned that being led by local needs and wants is really important. Even if the concept is copyable, the specifics of how it works in that one community should be based on that one community. 

Isabel: I think the common thread throughout all of the topics that we talked about today is actually a lot of around sharing knowledge. So Becky has enabled more people to set up libraries of things. Chris has shared actually useful skills. So you’ve borrowed a tool and then you’ve learned how to use it. So again and again, we’re talking about sharing knowledge. And I think that’s what is actually really empowering. 

Izzy: So borrow, don’t buy and share what you know. 

Isabel: Yes.  

Izzy: Extra bit on the title. Thank you so much, Isabel, for joining us today. It’s been absolutely lovely hearing about the Party Kit Network. Have you got any other bits and pieces that you want to share before we go? 

Isabel: I think it’s really important to remember that it might seem like a little act, so borrowing a set of plates or borrowing a drill, but actually that little act can add up to a really big impact. And we’ve seen that with the Party Kit Network. Collectively, our members have helped avoid over a million single use items, which is amazing from just people lending out plates. So never think your action is too small. 

Izzy: Yeah, that is a really lovely message to end on. Thank you again so much. 

You’ve been listening to Do Something Bigger from the Carbon Copy podcast. This episode was written and presented by me, Isabelle Sparrow. The guest co-host today is Isabel Mack, founder of the Party Kit Network CIC. Huge thanks to our speakers, Becky Harford of Benthyg Cymru, Chris Hellawell of Edinburgh Tool Library and Gavin Fernie-Jones of Re-Action Collective. This episode was edited by Alex Orosa. Do join us next time when we’ll be chatting about engaging your community with our campaign partners, the Carbon Literacy Project. Until then, goodbye!