November 16, 2023
Hour with us today we have um I’m really excited to share this webinar with you our terrific guest slate of guest speakers will help you learn about events and opportunities around the state that are bringing the magic of reuse to Massachusetts residents my name is Susan waight and I
Am one of mass dp’s m Municipal assistance coordinators or as I as we are I hope affectionately called a Mac between my co-host Irene kden and I we serve 175 municipalities in Central and Western Massachusetts helping them def find ways to reduce household trash this can be achieved through recycling
Reuse composting and other methods the goal is to divert as much valuable stuff from Massachusetts trash as possible because the cost of trash disposal is increasing and it makes absolutely no sense to send valuable materials to an incin generator or a landfill I’m excited today because reuse
Is an amazing topic you’ve heard the concept of a win-win situation well reuse for me is a quadruple win I um you and I save money because borrowing or purchasing durable items is less costly than uh when they’ve been previously used you and I win when we access items
Of better quality or design than we would normally be able to because in many cases used or older goods are made of higher quality materials with better or with better craftsmanship than what we can a can buy or afford to buy today the third is that everyone in Massachusetts wins when reuse related
Jobs are created and the amount of trash we generate is reduced and finally the planet and every living thing on it wins when things that are already exist are reused instead of using more energy and more of the Earth’s limited natural resources to create new items today’s for presenters will share
How they are involved in this quadruple win situation we’ll hear about the ReUse of building materials the ReUse of durable household goods borrowing opportunities and the opportunity to to extend the lives of the items that we already have through participation in community repair events but first some housekeeping
Details um can go back there we go uh first of all this record this webinar is being recorded a link to the recording will be sent to you within the next week or so and will also be posted on the recycles smart website we’re going to
Have some time toward the end of our the hour for questions if you have a question you’d like to address to a speaker please type it in right away into the chat box Irene along with M EP education and Outreach goddesses Kathy doff and Janice par will keep track of questions and we’ll
Direct them to the presenters when the time is right I’ve shown on the screen here you can see where the chat box is and please keep yourself muted at with your video off next slide because we’re limited to an hour we’ll go at a pretty fast clip buckle up
There’s lots of good information headed your way the first presentation is about building material reuse Massachusetts has a number of outlets for used AR architectural materials and one of them is located right near me here in Springfield um waste reduction consultant Nick DeVito works for the center for ECOT technology which owns
And operates ecobuilding Bargains until recently Nick worked in the actual store helping contractors homeowners and donors identify and purchase items for reuse or repurpose welcome Nick thank you Susan for the introduction and I’m happy to be here to share my experience from working at ecobuilding Bargains so hello my name is
Nick DeVito I’m here on behalf of Center for eote technology and today I will be speaking about ecobuilding Bargains the largest reuse store in New England and why reuse and deconstruction matter the center for eote technology or c for short is an environmental nonprofit that helps residents and businesses save
Money and reduce waste we work with Partners across the country to address climate change and for more than 40 years CET has offered practical solutions to help save money increase the health and comfort of our homes and help businesses perform better next slide ecobuilding Bargains is C’s reclaimed building material store the
Iconic green and white building as shown here located on 83 Warrior Street in Springfield Massachusetts is right off the highway ecobuilding Bargains accepts donations of quality Home Improvement materials and sells them to the public at a discounted price our warehouse is open to the public six days a week and
Our customers love the unique finds the higher quality items and the value of reclaimed pieces that they can find there if you are located a greater distance and can’t make the drive to the store you can even shop online at ecobuilding bargain. org or at our eBay
Page be aware the online store only represents a fraction of all the items in stock on any given day so we always encourage you to come down to visit the store or schedule a virtual shopping visit via Zoom or FaceTime because our inventory is donated ecobuilding Bargains offers donation pickups across
New England at no charge and we also accept donations brought directly to our store always call or check the website to see if we are able to accept your particular donation drop off before loading the car and as a nonprofit ecobuilding Bargains can also provide a donation receipt that you may
Be able to use on your taxes next slide you can share ecobuilding Bargains as an outlet for anyone who is doing home renovations whether it’s to donate items for deconstruction projects or to purchase items for reuse Eco building Bargains has at all items such as kitchen cabinets bathroom vanities tubs
Toilets Windows Doors and More keeping these good and reusable items out of the trash not only will save money on dumpster costs but can also provide a cheaper alternative for those looking to renovate or upgrade their space the photo in the background of this slide is of our sales floor and after working
There for five years and seeing the space constantly shift it is my opinion that people love coming in just to check out what’s new as I mentioned before because this inventory is always changing um sometimes you in and find nothing while other times you come in and find more than what you’d expect
Next slide so here are just some of the items ecobuilding Bargains has received throughout the years most of most if not all of these items left within a few months of them coming in and because of outlets like ecobuilding Bargains um as well as customers who are looking to
Find a deal or build green these items get a second chance at life instead of being thrown away as I mentioned we work with both homeowners and contractors to prevent these perfect good materials and items from going into the trash and make Home Improvement more affordable for
Everyone I would say our top selling items are windows and doors but because our inventory is constantly changing you just never know what you’re going to find you may go in looking for the perfect bathroom vanity but find the kitchen you’ve always been dreaming of the items are researched and priced to
The best of our ability but as a general rule of thumb all of our items are priced cheaper than what you would find anywhere else next slide I just wanted to take a moment and tell a few stories regarding the items on this slide in the top left we see a
Patio set which is just one of many items donated from a whole house de construction project on Martha’s Vineyard mind you we received roughly five shipping containers worth of materials and items from this project over a three-month period the patio set was is in the store roughly a week
Before it was purchased by someone who was planning to bring it right back to the cape to be used in their house there the middle photo is just a really really cool vintage stove that came in in as a front door donation we normally accept appliances only seven years or newer as
We have no means of testing the appliances in the store but this unexpected donation was impec was in impeccable condition and shortly after we received it it was the the store the stove was purchased by a play a local Playhouse to be used in a theater’s production the last photo on the right
Is a set of display cabinets from a kitchen design store they were just doing a remodel of their display room and opted to donate these cabinets in instead of throwing them away the cabinets are essentially brand new and made with high quality materials to display the custom style cabinets this
Particular store would sell next slide there are many ways to make deconstruction and reuse a two-way street throughout our Community Homeowners Architects Builders and Moors can request materials be donated or built and used with used materials when planning your next project consider using consider building with used materials vco building Bargains
Occasionally receives donations of brand new materials as well so it’s worth checking out even if you currently don’t have any projects in mind I have many items in my store from ecobuilding Bargains both new and used however my favorite are seen here on this slide my
Front and back door um I say they’re my favorite because I was originally quoted $10,000 from this construction company to uh purchase the doors and have them install it um and then when I did some digging it was going to cost me about $3,000 to just buy the doors from Home
Depot um or doors that work kind of similar um but I ended up purchasing both of these doors which you see the the installed and the uninstalled version of them um I purchased them both for about $800 at ecobuilding Bargains I also have a picture of my dining room
Light fixture which I’ve done about every light fixture in the house so there is uh too many pictures to show there but next slide so why does this all matter uh besides saving you money and throwing perfectly good building materials away um by donating your are also saving the
Environment it’s this idea of embodied carbon um as it’s important to are the impact on the environment embodied carbon is the carbon dioxide emission associated with building materials and construction processes throughout the whole life cycle of a building it includes the carbon dioxide created during the manufacturing and transportation of those building
Materials to the job site as well as the construction PR practices used it also refers to the carbon dioxide produced by maintaining the building and eventually demolishing it transporting it and recycling it does not include the carbon dioxide from day-to-day energy use by reusing and retrofitting buildings
Someone can save 50 to 75% of the embodied carbon that would be emitted by constructing a new similar building next slide C also administers the recycling Works program for Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection recycling Works provides free assistance to help businesses and institutions to maximize recycling reuse and food waste
Diversion opportunities feel free to contact recycling works if you a contractor architect or construction firm that would like help with deconstruction and that’s it thank you Nick thanks so much remember to enter your questions into the chat box our next speaker is Kimberly Thomas the CEO of Old Colony
Habitat for Humanity which operates in the greater ad adbor area car Kim leads the old colonies building projects and oversees the retail operation the restore on Washington Street in attelboro Kim is going to tell us about their store and why the concept of reuse of durable household goods is such a
Winning proposition welcome Kim thank you Susan good afternoon everyone it’s a pleasure to be here on the next slide you’ll see our restore um storefront on Route One in Avalar it’s 10,000 square ft warehouse and about 8,000 square ft of uh reusable and donated items and the next slide Old Colony habitats nonprofit
Organization that helps families build and improve places called home and many um habitats across the state have a restore and um we believe affordable housing plays a critical role in strong and stable communities our um Old Colony Habitat for Humanity uh affiliate and restore serve 24 communities in Bristol
And northart County our ReStore in Al sells gently uh new and gently used items to the public we promote reuse in local economy and we generate Revenue to support habitat’s primary Mission around affordable housing and the next slide please and the Habitat ReStore are independently owned reuse stores
Operated by the local Habitat for Humanity organizations we sell high quality merchandized to the public at a fraction of the retail price we rely heavily on donations from the public and local companies and individuals within our community donating items to the restore extends the useful life of the item and
Diver reusable household items and building materials from the trash next slide please excuse me this is our service area so we um serve um anybody from East freet toown Fall River all the way up to Medfield and millon Medway in between in Bristol and norfor County and I restores
In aduro so you can see it’s pretty much in the center of our service area right on Route One Across From friendley is really visible within the aduro community and the next slide please so items at the restore that we sell and accept are Furniture appliances building materials Plumbing lighting electrical
Kitchen cabinets tools hardware and small Furnishings so you can see from the left we had received a grant from the ReUse um Grant of the state to do um a p pouch rack to be able to have more room in our restore to display more items and you see we get kitchen tables
And chairs we get really unique items on the bottom there you’ll see a little um you know stand there for the kitchen chairs um to the right we get tile we literally just got um five pallets of uh tile from a company um that they were you know kind of consolidating in their
Warehouse so we were delighted to accept that brand new tile and then light fixtures down the bottom and the next slide and then also we have small Home Furnishings a lot of the store on the left side of the store we have a lot of shelving with really some unique small
Furnishings such as dishes and plates and little lightings just really a lot of unique things that we have um at the re store that really people find as a small treasure the inventory changes every day we do pickups 5 days a week and we’re able to really um change the
Inventory move things around and um display for the season and on the next slide please and then we have the small Decor we have the ornaments to the left and we do like the fall theme so what we’ll do is we’ll sell as much as we can seasonally and
Then you know it’s really hard to have the storage so we do try to mark down items and get them out of the the recycling store so we’re able to um accept more product and have people um take advantage of the beautiful um items that we have we have our sofas and
Chairs as well so again some beautiful items we have those nice um you know the the stools there and we have all different types of furniture so it’s really great to see the different things come in the store I’ll go in the store once or twice a week I work remotely
Doing the home builds and when I go in there I’m always buying things as well and seeing some really unique things that come through excuse me the next slide and these are the different um shelvings that we received through our grant which we’re thrilled to have um to
Offer um more flexibility in displaying our our materials so you’ll see to the left we have um you know a lot of different shelving that we’re able to put up on you know different shelving and um the displays here for the the lights we get a lot of light fixtures
You’ll see the um the hardware store behind the bin where we have a lot of different tools and you know a lot of people donate some pretty great items and the next slide please and the benefits of the ReUse as Nick was saying it really the items are
Able to go to a new home the inventory is sold and greatly reduced price so everyone’s able to really find something and some definitely Treasures here at the uh restore someone may find something here that they couldn’t afford to purchase at a regular store and finding a treasure that you wouldn’t
Otherwise get from retailers and you know doing it yourself like I said the tile coming in was wonderful we have hardwood fls that have come in that are brand new so a lot of great items that come through next slide please and they’re receiving donations we ask that
People who um bring donations directly to the store do this and we also give um donation pickups so people can come to the store or drop off and the number of stops that we do in a given week are limited so we try to be as efficient as
We can we have people calling every day for pickups it’s quite exciting to be able to reuse um people’s donations um and it makes them feel good as well as us a staff member volunteer at the store can guide people in the right direction when you drop off a donation and
Regardless if you want to you know either um come in to pick up a donation or drop that off yourself we do provide a receipt with the inventory of the items we donated for tax purposes we don’t value those items but we do give the receipt on the items
Listed and then this is really a fun slide we just did this last week with the holidays coming we were able to get some really beautiful items some of them were donated from the home store so you can see there’s a lot of new items here
As well as um you know reusable um decorations and um different pillows and dishes for the holiday season so that is actively happening in every store today and the next slide donating purchasing items we sell and accept donation gently used materials um our popular items that we sell are sofas dressers doors and
Gift items we get items donated from Lowe’s and CVS and many other partners in Massachusetts we don’t accept some items such as mattresses and so on as you see on the slide it also is listed on our website at Old Colony habitat.org and we rely heavily on the community
Support through donations volunteers and customers and this is a um excuse me a toolbox that had come into the restore and we had one of our um you know frequent Shoppers sent us a picture of this item as he redid the toolbox which is really great he did a beautiful job so these
Are just a couple of examples of DIY projects that you can get from the restore and then also this beautiful chair this actually my neighbor she called out to me she said I want to put something out on my porch Kim what do you have at the storm like go by and see
What we we have and and then she bought this chair high quality and painted it and she’s displaying it in her mud room so I asked her the other day well please send me that picture from from my friend to show you all that I thought she did a beautiful
Job and as far as restores I thought it was pretty interesting to see across there are 912 restores across the world with almost 8,000 employees and the 260 tons of materials that would have end up in landfills are reused through our habitat restores so that’s a really
Great thing and I know a lot of people may not know that the Resto all of them across the state and you know across the world are open to the public and on our next slide excuse me you’ll see the different areas of our restores we have
Our adoro restore and then there are other habitat Affiliates that I work closely with and share best practices cver fouth Northville Ricker Lawrence lemonster Pittsfield two locations in Wester I had seen a comment come through that someone’s been to the Ashland re store Rest Ro Roxberry and South
Yarmouth so we share resources ideas and sometimes we’ll get so much material we’ll reach out to one another and share um materials as well so we have a really great collaborative approach here in Massachusetts with our res stores in our particular resore these are our hours um
Again a lot of the information is on the website um so you’ll see that they’re 10 to 5 Tuesday Wednesday Friday Thursday 10 to 4: Saturday 9 to 5 we’re closed on Sunday and Monday and really the circle back to what really the mission is around the restore the next slide
Please this was an impact on the community we get all of the donated products we’re able to recycle which is fantastic and then the money that we bring into the restore profits go towards Building Homes and families in northwalk and Bristol County just as other habitat restores do in the other
Um communities and this past year we’re able to house this beautiful family a single mom and or two children in adoro and we’re starting a new construction in Norton so we’re really um really busy at Habitat for Humanity of Old Colony and appreciate the time on the next next
Slide we do have our social media post you can follow us and any other the other restares or habitats across the state see what items they’re selling and what kind of bills they’re doing and um really appreciate your time today and excited to um see if you have any
Questions or have been to our restores thank you very much thank you so much Kim please uh put your questions for Kim in the chat box if you would our final topic focuses on ways that we can promote the continued use and reuse of durable household items we’re going to
Learn how a culture of repair and reuse is being established and promoted in Western ma in in Massachusetts communities first we’ll hear from Joyce losky about a pandemic inspired activity the town of Andover held and then Mina Jane will share some great things that are happening at the Ashfield Public
Library as um I I said Ashfield it’s Ashland I’m sorry as Andover director sustain ability Joyce oversees the town’s Energy Efficiency and sustainability programs conducting Outreach efforts to promote Andover sustainability goals welcome Joyce thank you Susan and uh it’s great to be invited so I’ll thank the
Organizers for that um and it’s great to be with you this afternoon uh my name is Joyce Losi Kang um it’s a mouthful I work for the town of Andover as a director of sustainability and energy and for those of you not uh familiar with the marac valley uh we’re a I would
Say a midsize Suburban town about 25 miles north of of Boston uh and uh I joined um just about four years ago in Andover and this was one of the earliest experiences I had on the subject of uh reuse and repair and it was as Susan said said it was truly a
A pandemic inspired and you’ll see why um next slide please so we held our bike repair event in 2021 uh smack dab right in the middle of the pandemic uh it was unique in many ways but among the you know sort of the most notable things was that it was a
True partnership uh between sustainability uh Public Works the library and and over V our local cable station um we were all looking for ways to connect with our community in in meaningful ways during a time when a lot of us were working remotely or stuck at home but something really dramatic
Happened was that people really began to go outside of their home uh maybe that was due to necessity there just so much Zoom class work that you can do with your child uh but they really began to explore the wonderful Outdoors uh more people begin to walk and to bike in our
Community than at any other previous time uh and so we were looking for specifically outdoor events and particularly looking at how to address uh waste issues and still support our community in a meaningful way so we decided to look at bike repair uh and you know obviously um
Repair is a really great way to extend the life of a device or an item um but specifically you know folks were really enjoying uh the outdoors in town and we wanted to support them uh in any way that we can so this event we specifically set it a low low threshold
It was free for anyone to register we had expert instructor uh provide the instructions on how to repair your bike we took care of the purchase of the tool thanks to the grant um the recycling dividend uh from Mass D so we you did not have to come with your own set of
Tools and we made sure to record the event in case you might need a refresher later on so we offer this uh to a limited set of attendees uh we couldn’t have the the event be too big uh otherwise they wouldn’t get the individual sort of attention they might
Want and so we invited um cap the registration to 10 attendees who all learned how to repair flat tires and to maintain uh their bike chains on their own bike so we encourage people to bring in their own um bicycles so what we emphasized was really safety while
They’re riding as anyone who’s a a writer will know uh it’s really not fun to be stuck in the middle middle of your ride uh and have a flat and then need to be rescued uh you may be also um far away from cell phone reception and so
For them what they really gave us feedback on was that it was really great to cover the subject because it gave them enhanced safety while they were enjoying their rides uh it also gave a lot of our attendees the confidence to then carry out other regular bike
Maintenance on their own and what we hope was that this culture of repair will start with their bike and then gradually expend to other uh items that that people own uh in Andover so uh you’ll see a little oh sorry back I just want to make the the note um our library
Was a key uh partner in this in that the tools that we purchased for the bike repair event uh was later then added to the cash of things at our library of things at the library so that even after the event folks could access these tools when they needed them for their repair
So the the coupling of the library of things with this repair was very synergistic and purposefully done all right next slide all right so why this particular item why this a fascination with bikes um and this is still really relevant to all of us today working on
Climate change uh just even now even though the the sort of the the rational at the time a lease was that there was just basically no stock even if you wanted to purchase a bike there was a global shortage because of the supply chain disruption so that was at least a
Part of our motivation for hosting an event but it still continues to be an important facet uh to repair bikes number one which may be surprising to to some of you cycling is among the very lowest emission uh mode of transportation that’s available uh we know certainly for a fact that that’s 10
Times less emissions than driving but perhaps you may be surprised to learn it’s even better than walking so as a sustainability director my mission is to cut our carbon footprint as much as possible I want people to stay on their bikes and to use it whenever feasible um
Second a bike can really last a long time I’ve had my bike for over 10 years uh it can easily last more than 15 years with the proper maintenance and repair so we’re talking about replaceable components like chains and sprockets and Brakes and Tires those little components
Can really keep the rest of the bike on the road for a really long time uh last but not least many people own bikes and we do not want want to see uh folks uh generating you know 20 to 30 pounds of waste per bike per bike owner every five
Years which is you know sort of the typical replacement rate uh we have 10,000 bikes in Andover alone I’m sure if you’re in a bigger city that number is even bigger so that’s a lot of ways that we could divert if folks learned how to um develop a repair relationship with their bik
All right next slide please all right so for those of you who are sold on this idea of the bike repair here’s sort of a stepbystep event planning guide first if you’re not a Municipal Employee like I am work with your city or town give them a call um
And ask them whether they have applied for and have recycling dividend funds remaining this is a really lowcost event that you can do with a a few hundred dollar um the most important part is to find and hire an instructor who is certified to repair bikes uh we have the
Fortunate um um instructor Dave Rooker in in the mayc valley he’s uh worked with our police on a number of different bike safety events so very familiar to the area uh and excellent instructor who knows all the ins and outs about bikes and who can teach you how to work on
Your bike uh second third uh decide on a venue and a date it’s wonderful thing to do outside while it’s form and then make sure at that time when you’re you know honing on the the venue in the day to reach out to your local cable access uh
So that you can um preserve that learning for the community uh in perpetuity uh then obviously do the all the other fun things that you do with events you need to advertise ideally at least three week weeks prior to get folks out there um and then if your
Budget allows to you know and there isn’t a set of tools at your library of things uh bu the tools the repair manual and the bike stand those are the three you know sort of most important tool pieces uh that can uh be shared among the community uh for the vast majority
Of the bike uh repairs that you might want to do then obviously is to release that recording so that even folks who couldn’t attend your event could find it later on uh and learn how to do it themselves all right last but not least um I wanted to share with you my contact
Information in case you have other questions about how to do this event uh and how to get the rest of your community really engaged and embracing that culture of can do and rolling up their sleeves uh maybe getting a little bit of bite grease on their hands
I wanted to obviously thank uh Mass D for having the RDP programs to help communities really get off the ground in terms of their waste diversion um efforts and if you want to see what was happening in Andover we have that video link available for you here on the slide as
Well thanks that’s all I have thanks so much Joyce I it’s really surprising to hear that riding a bike is better than walking and you’ve inspired me to um dust off my bike and and um get moving thank you we’ve um let’s see Andover chose to focus on a specific
High demand repair need our next presenters Community provides a variety of types of repair assistance at their twice annual events Ashen public libraries director Mina Jane will tell us about how her organization helps the community share learn and extend the lives of household items welcome Mina
Thank you Susan thank you so much for having me I’m very excited to be here we’ve um as you said we we do do these twice a year we’ve done three so far and um it just um a growing need that we see in a lot of communities so i’ would be
Happy to talk about both the fixa clinic and then our library excuse me I have a little bit of a cough um our library of things next slide please so what is a Fixit Clinic there’s it’s a uh it’s an it’s a movement really to create places that people can come
And fix things instead of throwing them away so Fixit Clinic is actually a a an an organization called a called fix it and the uh founder is Peter Mew he’s wonderful super helpful in helping us think about how we want to reuse and recycle and repair especially and how we
Can do that as a community and I really love that um he he has this um perspective of that you can fix almost anything if you just have the as I think somebody else said a can the can do attitude so um a part of the fix it
Clinic philosophy is to teach people to not be afraid to fix their stuff um a lot of times we’re like oh I don’t know how to you know uh sew on a button and it you know if somebody shows you it it makes it much less scary um next slide please
So as I said we’ve done several Fixit clinics in Ashland we’ve had um we’ve had jewelry repair people we’ve had this we had this um somebody brought in a very old um sewing machine from the 1880s and we had somebody who who was able to fix it you know it just needed a
New um cord to to work and it and it worked when he when you know they left uh we’ve had people who can sew and repair clothing and as as well as just about anything you can see in one of the pictures there’s a vacuum cleaner and a
Lamp and things like that so we never know exactly what we’re going to get but um well that’s not true when we’re planning it we don’t know what we’re going to get but people do sign up to bring their stuff and um that this all goes through the fix it organization
Where they have a spreadsheet and you can see what people are going to bring and it all the Fixit Clinic people will also help you find um coaches so all of these are um the people that you see fixing are coaches that were either found by us in our community or um
Offered to do it through fix it and it’s pretty funny because there’s some people that just go from fix it Clinic to fix it Clinic because they just think it’s super fun so um you know we’ve typically had somewhere between two and two to five coaches doing all kinds of
Different things and the funny thing about them is they just jump in you know somebody’s like I don’t you know I brought this thing and I don’t know how to fix it and you know three coaches will be like I know how to do that and
They’ll all just jump in and fix it and it’s very exciting both for the people who are getting their stuff fixed and for the people who are fixing things next slide please um so yeah we have a library of things this came out of our Fixit clinics because we wanted to expand the
Ability for people to um to fix things at home but then we realized in a lot of libraries do this is that there’s an opportunity here for people to buy uh to try things before buying them or to try things or have things on hand once that
They only need once on occasion so like you don’t want to go out and buy you know um a video to DVD converter because you only need that once so if you get it from the library then you don’t have to pay for it one and um what are you going
To do with it after how many of you have things in your garages that you bought for a special thing and then all of a sudden it’s sitting in your garage with just collecting dust so that’s the purpose of a library of things and um
You know I didn’t want to skip over this but if you have any questions about how to um do a Fixit Clinic you know feel free to ask me in the chat or go to uh Fixit Clinic which I will put in the um chat as a a link and there’s two kinds
Of Fixit clinics there’s Fixit and there’s repair Cafe so you can check into either one of those sorry I went backwards a little bit um so the library things is a collection of games tools um Electronics anything that you in your imagination can think I might need this someday um next slide
Please so like I said the it’s the library of things from uh support sustainability I think in a really meaningful way um we want to do what’s called a circular economy we reducing excessive consumption and accumulation that’s what I was saying is like when you have things sitting in your garage
Because you used it once and you haven’t shared it with your neighbors because you’re not you know you’re not sure what they need and they have haven’t come to your door and said oh I really need a LEF blower or whatever so um th this is
A way for us to um on a public scale give um the opportunity for people to try things without buying them or try them before they buy them as I said um we the onetime use thing is is very very important to us um because I think that
A lot of people do this not realizing that they can just borrow and with a library card you can borrow for free so you’re not obligated to your neighbor to bring over a pie or anything like that after you borrow their like I said leaf blower you just come to the library use
Your library card which you already have I hope you have in your community and then you know use the thing and then if you love it let us know and if you don’t necessarily love it then you you didn’t waste your money on it and it’s not going to a
Landfill you’re not just throwing it away next slide please um so this is a list uh it’s not completely inclusive of things that you might find in a library of things um if you’ve ever been to the dovertown library they have a massive collection of Library things items including things like kitchen
Appliances um and a lot of libraries have tools which you know we that like I said came out of the library the fix it Clinic movement um we have gardening equipment we do seed libraries um during the Spring and the fall where you can borrow seeds well take seeds that have
Been donated from people people who had Gardens in the spring like if you do it in the fall so that’s kind of cool I think to be able to share all of that um electronics toys games so how many of you have kids who you know they’re like
I have to have this puzzle but you know it’s only going to be used once and if it’s at the library borrow it do the puzzle return it and then another family gets to use it so um you know it’s it’s just it’s just fun um art supplies
Science kits craft kits um things that you want to try like needle felting you could find at our library of things you know it’s it’s it’s fun you don’t necessarily have to um you know like I said uh go out and buy it for yourself and again this is and I just can’t
Emphasize this enough it’s just it doesn’t it just means that you don’t have to buy it you can you can just use it um I love this whole Community borrowing thing so next slide please we’re just going to go into some pictures because you might not know all
The fun things that we have in the library of things um fun and useful uh jewelry repair kit I think I told you that um we had somebody who came in and fixed those little um uh earrings for a little a girl who had gotten them as a gift from a
Grandparent and did not want to lose them you know so she she was able to fix them I love the portable green screen you know I think teens especially love this thing that they can get from the library and check out and see how much
Fun it is and then and then they can decide if it’s something that they would use more often or if they need it for an occasion or a party or something like that they can take out the the green screen and the karaoke machine at the
Same time and have a really fun day you know um and I think for some of our seniors having a vi video to digital converter is awesome what we found with this video to digital converter though is that you needed to have a VCR to use
It and a lot of people don’t have VCRs anymore so we also have a VCR in our library of things um the ring light you know try it who knows you might love it we’re all doing meetings more meetings now and as you can see in my office I
Don’t have a ring light it’s kind of yellowish because of the the the walls so it would be nice for to have to try it out and see if it uh brings up the light in my office um next slide please so we did get a bicycle bicycle
Repair kit as um I think Joyce had said they had for their repair thing but some of these other things are really great like people don’t realize how often they can use a button and they love using our button maker when we take it to outreach
Events and um they want to borrow it but we don’t lend out our own so we actually got one for the library of things and so now like we’ve had students take it out when they have uh you know an event that they want to give out buttons to or
Whatever and they just think it’s a blast they have like a little you know I guess party is the thing they have a littleit outing of like making buttons for everybody um my favorite thing on this list though is the roof rake because you know how often are you going
To use a roof rake not that often so if you can borrow from the library and I think a few years ago and we had a very bad snowstorm they were sold out you couldn’t find them and I think um this came up earlier too is that you know
With the bike repair kit and bikes that were just out supply chain issues so so get you know borrow a roof break from the library you’ll only probably need it once or twice a season but it’ll save you a ton of time and money next please and the fun stuff this is
Probably my favorite slide is um you can can get a father a an adult and child metal detector from our library of things you know if you’re going on vacation and you just want to take it out for a couple weeks you know try it you might find treasure you might not
But you’ll have a great time with your kids right and ukuleles who doesn’t want to learn the ukulele it’s super fun and all and and we also try to stay on top of current interests like things like pickle ball pickle Ball’s huge right now and we want
To make sure that people can play without having to um you know purchase a set because sometimes again there’s an equity issue here as well um although I make it sound like super fun it’s also giving people who don’t have the ability to buy things the opportunity to use
Things that they might not be able to purchase so um you know again super fun but it’s also um something Mission wise a library you know really really likes doing so um all of these are things that um the entire Community can use again with just your library card so next
Slide please so if you have any questions for me I’m happy to answer them like I said we’ve done several Fixit clinics we’ve always had a great time and you can also check out our entire list of Library things at this website and I’m sure if your library has
One you’ll get such a kick out of it so check it out if you can thank you so much for your time thank you Mina I just have a few more slides to share before we open things up for questions if you questions for mina please put them in
The chat we’ve heard from two communities who have used two similar but different models for repair events part of the beauty of a repair event is that the key ingredients are pretty basic you need only knowledgeable people who know how to fix things I like to call them fixperts and a site beyond
That one has lots of Freedom as to how to implement the program next slide please both Andover and Ashlin chose to employ repair models that engage the owners of the items in the actual repair process learning how to fix something is empowering and hopefully encouraging encourages further exploration but sometimes ferts are uncomfortable
Interacting with or teaching people or they need more time than a short face-to-face session allows or there’s a global pandemic that prevents people from gathering together in such cases a nonparticipant non-participatory model where ferts fix things without owner involvement Works beautifully too I’ll give you an example of that in a minute
Community repair programs can be organized by a municipality or they can be organized by a Civic group like a rotary club um an neighborhood or Faith organization or a girl scout troop in Western Massachusetts we even had a great repair program that operated for a few years in three different communities
That was organized by a single individual it doesn’t require a lot of money to operate an event but resources are required to get a program running and to promote it to the public that’s why it tends to be easier for established organizations to Start programs municipalities have an added
Advantage Grant funds are available for repair event expenses and library of things purchases if they participate in massdep’s recycling dividends grant program that being said some repair programs are funded by donations and or financial assistance from Community organizations so there’s lots of different options out there for you I’d
Like to share some information about a different repair event model in Bedford Massachusetts where the Fixit Shop has been operated by the city’s um Council on Aging for over 15 years so the City of Bedford um has a clinic and there is a minimum fee of $3 and they have um retirees and
Nonretirees a mix of people that that work there they fix electric appliances they um don’t do a whole lot of electronic material but um they do a lot of different kinds of electric things they sharpen garden tools and knives they work with wooden furniture lots of different um lots of different
Things they offer next slide please they’re open two days a week and they’re open the public I was even told that they will uh they will help people outside of the the City of Bedford so you don’t even need to be a resident um and like most repair events there are no
Guarantees that your item is fixable or it can be fixed or will be fixed but really what do you have to lose especially if it’s a beloved lamp or something um that that that you just adore um one of my colleagues was just talking about a suitcase that she had
That she um worked really hard to get fixed over and over again because she loved the suitcase so much so it it really there’s there’s very little risk involved um if you’re going to throw it away why not try to fix it and and extend its life on the
Planet um an online thank you an online resource created this repair Manifesto and I just love it because it beautifully sums up why the active repair deserves attention it requires creativity it makes consumers into contributors it’s more sustainable there’s just so many different reasons why repair is a beautiful thing next
Slide so I’d like to share a few resources that are available for those of you who’d like to find repair events near you or are interested in starting a repair movement in your community mea mentioned the Fixit Clinic they have a terrific website as does the repair Cafe these are both organizations
That help people start repair events and help people find repair events near them they have either calendars or maps that help um that you know that that help connect people and as Mina suggest as mea mentioned the Fixit clinic will even help you find fixperts to help uh staff
Your event iFixit is an online community of repair um repair people into interested in repair they have chat rooms where you can talk with people who know how to repair things and they have a super extensive library of fix it manuals of of um Owner Manuals that that um and and
Um and books about how to fix things at your disposal so it’s another really terrific resource and then finally Mast has some information on their website and I’ve listed U the the URL of the website below and if somebody can stick that into the chat that would be awesome
If you’re looking for an event near you or in your community it’s really easy just to do a search uh with the name of your municipality and fix or fix it or repair or repair Cafe um really super easy way to find out what’s going on near
You um let’s see with that we are ready for some questions Irene Kathy and Janice so what do we have yeah we’ve been having a lot of great questions going on in the chat which is just so fun and everybody’s talking about reuse um one thing I want to I think we always
Kind of go backwards starting with Mina because uh she was the last speaker and everybody’s talking about the um uh tool library and uh one thing that I noted um that I think I want to want to publicize is you have a luggage which I’ve never actually seen
This a luggage scale and I automatically saw that and go I need to borrow that not for luggage but when I do waste audits so when you do a waste audit you want to weigh the bags of trash and it’s always like trying to put something on a scale and
Finding the right size scale that you want to put somebody and nobody wants to be the guinea pig to be be the hold the bag and weigh bag or try to maneuver the bag so just literally I used to do like a fish scale and to use a luggage scale
Is like perfect I’m like so needed we all need it I’m so glad you have it um that could like change everybody because everyone’s like how many bags because you you count bags and it’s not the same as when you do the weight of the bags
And um so just another idea maybe when you’re writing it down you can say luggage slash trash AIT scale I I just love that um you’ve been answering some of the questions but I think everybody else wants to know for liability um for certain things like do
You do power um different things that have batteries and that are um maybe a little sharper I don’t think you do any like knives or anything like that but I just didn’t know if there are certain liabilities that you have to worry about with the tool Library um that’s a good question I
Think that for a library anything that is borrowed from the library is under the liability um under the insurance of the library so if somebody was to get hurt or something they could certainly come back and say um I got electrocuted by your power washer or something and we
Could figure out what happened but um yeah generally they’re taking it out on their own sort of recognizance and um they don’t sign waivers or anything like that except for the cost of the thing but yeah we do we always give out the batteries that are associated with
Whatever item that they’re taking out um we don’t expect people to buy their batteries either and we do use reusable batteries so that we are not throwing anything in the landfill um but that’s a very good question Irene and I think every town should probably has a different P um different um perspective
On that yeah and then you do say as some products you do have some type of waiver or if they have to return it so they’re they need to sign something yeah just because if if you’re like taking out the telescope which cost like $700 you definitely want somebody to know that
That’s the case because if they lose it or break it or something like that it would be very very costly for them to to have to and we you know we have contingencies for that so people shouldn’t have to worry too too much but yeah there there’re are late fees for
Our library of things some things are very much in demand yep we have that for our American Girl dolls which is just so fun that you can only use them for a week because they go so fast and we do have to say this is exactly what’s in
The box because it can be lost in the house so we want to know that um how much space do you use when you have events so when you have your um Repair Clinic how how much space do you utilize that in the parking lot or do use a
Field do you use inside the the library so just a little more on your setup we do it inside we have a a meeting room that uh seats 90 and uh but we put up maybe seven or eight tables where each uh coach can be and so they you know
They set up with their sewing machine or their tools or whatever and um yeah so we usually have about eight tables set up in our large meeting room but we we I know people do it outside Joyce I know you did yours and I did you have a place
That you could go inside if the weather had been bad no we did it right next to our town offices um and it was a beautiful day so I didn’t have to worry but I could easily see setting up a few tents uh over the parking lot in case
There was a a drizzle uh but you could still do it outside um but we picked June because we knew that the chances of rain were fairly low um so that was part of the reason for doing it in June y um okay for Kimberly there was a question I
Think you answered some of it um was adding um reuse and repair to um some of the things that you have and expanding uh to like job development I didn’t know you you said you worked a little bit with some high school students but I didn’t know if you worked with
Others as well or can you hear me okay yeah y I did because I my headset excuse me um so we have worked with high schools at the job site and also at the restore um and then some of our volunteers will come in and
Help do repairs as well and help us with some of the items but we do pretty much take items that may not need as much repair to resell and people will fix them themselves I think is that what you’re asking hopefully I’m answering the question yeah okay it’d be great to
Have something other than that too to take in the items that could use a little bit of TLC and do it that way we’re very limited with Staffing but I’d love the idea I know it’s always limited by Staffing and space always been a space issue of where to take stuff um
Nick um this is one of my questions is I know you’ve been you in the uh bu uh rebuilding for a while a long time uh when you had contractors come in what did they ever say about the building materials that you would get you know that so they appreciate it I’m assuming
So because they were there but yeah so they they would always come in for like the good deals because they they know what they’re buying anyways um so like versus them going to Home Depot they and we would have contractors like I got to know a lot of guys that would come in
Guys or gals that would come in relig iously like on a weekly or multi multi-day basis um just to check and see what came in because if they could pick it up at ecobuilding Bargains for you know the fraction of a price that they would be paying if they had to go to
Home Depot like I don’t know if they were necessarily passing that savings on to the customer I would hope that they would be um but they definitely were saving some money um so if it helped out their business you know maybe they were able to do more or and or they could
Provide um a higher quality item to who they were serving um but it’s always funny with contractors because it kind of depends on the contractor if they are willing to use reuse items some of them just want what they want when they want it and unfortunately in most Reus operations we
Can’t guarantee what we have um but if if they’re willing to take the trip there daily or if they work in the area it’s it’s definitely worthwhile for them because they’re going to save money if they pick up anything I think I’m GNA jump in I’m going to jump in because we
Said we were going to last an hour and we’re reaching the end of our hour uh if if if some of you would like to hang stay on um to answer some listen to some more questions being answered we can stay uh for a few more minutes but I
Wanted to spend a send a special thank you to our presenters it’s one thing to be part of the ReUse effort and it’s another to take the time and effort to participate in a webinar uh telling people about it so thank you and thank you to our audience for participating
Today and we can take a few more questions I think we got most of the questions I was just thinking that it’s just so key that um a lot of reuse sometimes doesn’t happen if you don’t talk to your contractor to know I prefer reuse um they won’t do it if you don’t
Talk to your architect and talk about that that I want because sometimes these products most of these products are better quality than if you buy new today they’re just they’re just made with a lot more uh real wood real Springs real um Nails um it just seems like a better
Quality in a lot of cases and that’s why they’re there for reuse uh but we have to specify it and we do have the grants so that was one of the things we didn’t really talk about um it is in the chat that the micro grants for the library
For the organizations for the nonprofits for the communities and the towns have RDP money that they could use to help support reuse and support and create shelving or things that you need for your library of things but I we I think we got everything and it will be in the
Um presentation when we do recording so um thank you thank you everybody have a great day go forth and reuse