Reuse, Repurpose, Restore

“Today’s products are tomorrow’s resources at yesterday’s prices.”
— Walter Stahel, Father of the Circular Economy

Before buying, consider if you can borrow the item, especially for things you’ll use just once or infrequently and don’t have room to store. Be part of the growing share economy for all kinds of things that you need occasionally, but don’t want to own.

Tools and Equipment

Home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowes offer tool and trailer rentals to help you with those occasional jobs requiring a special piece of equipment. From lawn and garden, to cleaning and painting, to basic power tools, if you can buy it, you can probably rent it.

Tools, fishing poles, binoculars, cake pans, and wi-fi hotspots—check out these items free from the Manatee County Library of Things!

Ride Share

Owning your own bike, car, boat, or RV can be expensive, especially when it spends most of the time parked.

• Bike – The City of Sarasota offers a bike share program with self-service bike rental locations at the St Armands Circle Parking Garage and Downtown Sarasota Palm Avenue Garage.
• Car – Zipcar membership provides an alternative to car ownership with the convenience of a mobile app. You can also borrow a car or share your car with others through the private car share platform Turo.
• Boat – Freedom Boat Club and Waves Boat Club provide membership alternatives to owning a boat.
• RV – Rent an RV or share your RV with others through services like Outdoorsey, RVShare, and RVezy.

Books, Magazine, Music

Whether you’re into hardcover or digital, Sarasota County Library and Manatee County Library have a large catalogue of materials, including magazines, movies, and music, all free! Their convenient mobile apps for digital checkout mean you don’t even need to step inside the library.

Look for these free downloads in your device’s app store (library card and PIN required to access materials).

• Cloud Library – Borrow and read eBooks and eAudiobooks (Sarasota County Library).
• Flipster – Browse, search and download popular magazines to read offline (Sarasota County and Manatee County).
• Hoopla – Borrow movies, music, audiobooks, ebooks, comics and TV shows to enjoy on your computer, tablet, or phone (Sarasota County and Manatee County).
• OverDrive – Borrow and read eBooks and eAudiobooks (Manatee County Library).
• Press Reader – Get instant access to editorial content from global and multicultural publications from over 120 countries in more than 60 languages (Sarasota County Library).

Did you know?

You can leave a book or take a book at Free Little Libraries, pint-sized book boxes popping up in neighborhoods.  Check the map or build one in your neighborhood.

Tap friends, neighbors, consignment shops, and garage sales. Buy, sell, and trade with local sellers online using Facebook Groups and Craig’s List. Shop and consign online with the growing number of secondhand e-commerce sites. When you’re done, pass on or resell to give items more life before the landfill. Check out these sources of quality used items, sometimes for free, locally and online.

Local

• Shop local Garage Sales – Garage Sales Tracker, Garage Sale Finder
• Join a local Facebook Group to give and receive free stuff – search for keywords “Buy Nothing”, “Swap Shop”, “Totally Free Stuff”, “Freecycle”
• Buy, Sell, and Donate locally on Craig’s List
• Shop and Donate at local not-for-profit thrift stores
  • Goodwill Retail Store
  • The Exchange Consignment Store (Pictured above)
  • Habitat for Humanity Restore Furniture Showroom and Home Improvement Outlet
• Pick up free household chemical products at the Sarasota County Chemical Re-Uz-It Shop

Online

• Amazon.com sells pre-owned, refurbished, and open-box electronics, tools, home and kitchen appliances, furniture, toys, outdoor gear, and more
• Bookmooch.com is a book trading platform
• Thredup.com is a leading platform for buying and selling second-hand clothes
• Toycycle.co is an online kid’s thrift store for high quality toys, gear, and clothes
• Ebay.com, Etsy.com, and Mercari.com are major online platforms for buying and selling second-hand items

Say no to cheap, breakable stuff. When you buy new, buy better and more durable things, not disposable. Well-made clothes, housewares, and electronics stay out of the landfill longer, and are easier to fix and restore. Make the most out of the stuff you already own. Learning how to maintain and repair your things also generates satisfaction and self-reliance.

Buy durable products

Look for lifetime warranties and products that come with repair manuals. Avoid products designed with planned obsolescence—an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design—forcing you to trash and rebuy.

Learn to FIY (fix it yourself)

Be your own handyman, seamstress, cobbler, electronics engineer, jeweler, and more.

• With millions of “how to repair” videos, there is very little you can’t learn to fix on YouTube!
• Search the ifixit.com library of more than 76,000 repair manuals for electronics, appliances, cars and trucks, apparel, and household items. You can also find special tools and parts to FIY.
• Fixitclub.com offers 250 free step-by-step repair guides for home systems, appliances, clothing, furnishings, toys, and more.
• Get free product support on items purchased from Amazon.com including troubleshooting, replacement parts, and user manuals.

Support local repair shops

If you can’t or don’t want to fix your own things, there is someone local who can. Repair and reuse supports local jobs while reclaiming valuable natural resources. Supporting our skilled seamstresses, cobblers, jewelers, and electronics engineers helps keep local repair shops in business so their skills are not lost to the community. A quick search on yelp.com can reveal the fix-it businesses in your area.