Towards Oxford’s Library of Things
Our waste prevention efforts (reduce, reuse) build up on Lansink’s original waste hierarchy and on circular economy principles.
Circular Collective, also known as “The Oxford Circular Collective” was set up in December 2015 and is currently an unincorporated community action group (CAG) under the CAG Oxfordshire Network. The group was set up to exemplify a unique circular business model that ‘took things back into the system’. This was done via our booking service for reusable, repairable, and recyclable household items. The items were collected in bike trailers, sorted into circular and type categories, then delivered to local charitable reuser, repairer and recycler organisations.
Beyond this model, our vision is now to create a circular zero waste culture, moving away from the take-make-dispose economy towards a regenerative circular economy. Once we become a registered social enterprise, we will offer a range of services and ‘recirculated’ products to our members and to society at large, in order to avoid waste, save money, save the environment and learn new skills.
The Library of Things (LoT) will be the first and main project of Circular Collective company.
The aim of the LoT project is to create a sustainable service that enables its members to ‘borrow’ (rent) instead of buying items that are only sometimes needed – such as DIY tools, outdoor and sports equipment, etc. This way, we aim to help people to avoid waste, to save space, money and the environment, to learn new skills by using or repairing the items, and in the process to encourage other aspects of community.
While it will have its own local character created by its coordinators and members, the Oxford LoT is conceived along the lines of other ‘libraries of things’ and ‘tool libraries’ that exist in other cities, towns and countries around the world, such as the SHARE Frome library, London Library of Things, The Sharing Depot – Toronto, or Leila in Berlin.
Find out more at our project page! (Our website is under reconstruction.)
Last but not least, we’d be forever grateful for any donation.
