Zero Waste Podcast 10: Buy Less, Borrow Instead

In thirty years we consumed over one third of the earth’s natural resource space. Do we need to keep buying?

The people of Leith are sharing books, toys, cars and even fish tanks. Visit Casselbank Kids Toy Library, meet founder member of Greener Leith Ally Tibbit to find out about the online Leith Lending Circle and pop into the pub, Sofi’s bar to swap books and DVD’s. All this and more on our latest podcast: 

If you have iTunes installed on your computer you can subscribe to our audio as a podcast by clicking here. 

Casselbank Kids Toy Library

Here are some photos I took during my visit the toy library:

Casselbank Kids meet every Thursday morning from 9.30-11.30am at South Leith Baptist Church, 5a Casselbank Street (2nd right from the foot of Leith Walk). It cost £3 for family membership for the year and toys are 20p, 40p and 60p to borrow for a week. Call 07954 206908 for more information. 

The Leith Lending Circle

The Leith Lending Circle is a great way to share and borrow household items if you live in Leith. Read more about it on Greener Leith. This online lending circle includes insurance for valuable items and is provided by Ecomodo. 

Libraries and the City Car Club

You can visit your local library and borrow books for free, find out more on the Edinbrugh City Libraries Website or on the Tales of One City blog. The Edinburgh City Car Club was set up by Changeworks in 1999 with funding from the City of Edinburgh Council. This project has been so sucessful we now have car clubs throughout the UK.

The Bigger Picture

The next 'buy nothing day' is November 24, 2012. The challenge is to raise awareness of the issues behind our mass consumerism and think about how it's effecting the rest of the planet.

We've been tricked into thinking we need to keep consuming, manufacturers even design items to be obsolete after a couple of years. It started to boost our economy but it's not sustainable. Find out about all of this and more in the eye opening, engaging short film the Story of Stuff:

 

With resources decreasing and population increasing sharing may be the best way forward.   

The Zero Waste Podcast series is produced by Emily Dodd for Greener Leith and funded by City of Edinburgh Council Waste Action Grants, Vegware and Changeworks. 

The theme tune for the podcast was brought to you by Waste Action Grant funded project, Trash Arts.

Comments

[James Hardman]

The kids seemed to have so much fun when you visited the library.