Collaborative Consumption – Waffle Irons and Lawn Mowers
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Collaborative Consumption – Waffle Irons and Lawn Mowers

In October 2013, Stephanie Günther gave a presentation at homo ecos: about “collaborative consumption”. In this series of nine blogs, she explains what it is, and how it can help towards a more sustainable society. Chapter 7: Waffle Irons and Lawn Mowers.

On average a private drilling-machine is used 45 hours in its lifetime (15-25 years), but it could easily be used about 300 hours. A scarifier (dethatcher) for the lawn is used about 50 hours in 15 years, when it could be used at least 400 hours until its useful life is over. A lawn-mower is used about 350 hours, while having a maximum service time of 600 hours.

Many kitchen tools, like waffle irons, kitchen machines and utensils to prepare cakes, crêpes, fondues or raclettes are often used only a few times a year and then are stored in a cupboard.

We often buy products that we need only for special occasions (sometimes we only need them once), because we do not reflect if this makes sense, or because we do not have (or see) an alternative to the purchase.

Borrowing a garden tool from the neighbour has always exist, but often we only do it when our own machine is broken. Also launderettes have existed for a long time and still do, but with the possibility to buy a private washing machine, this service has disappeared in many places. One of the reasons is that it is not very practical to go to these launderettes which are sometimes quite far away from home. The alternative to commercial launderettes is sharing washing-machines with neighbours who live in the same house. This is still very common in Switzerland.

And last but not least, internet platforms like Ebay and Amazon have early taken up the idea of “flea markets” and auctions by organizing the public sale of items online.

So sharing tools for house and garden is not really new, but for having a real economic, ecological and social impact, it still has to be developed on a larger scale. With internet and the social media, the organisation of borrowing, exchanging, renting, selling or offering house and garden tools has become much easier. Some commercial enterprises have even discovered this market before internet was used broadly: in Germany, building supplies stores which sell equipment for building and renovating houses and for gardening have set up rental services for tools and machines that the customers often need only for special works. This service was made for private persons as well as for professionals. And the meanwhile existing renting services on internet also focus on both target groups.

Like in all exchanging and renting systems, the ecological and economic benefit depends on the energy spent not only on the production of the good, but also on the use when it is shared. If you have to take your car to get a lawn-mower at a place 20 km away and bring it back after use, this is neither very ecological, nor practical for you, so you will probably not do it again. So ideally, the sharing of items that are small or rather frequently used should be organized on a local level, in your neighbourhood or community. For renting bigger machines or tools that are only used once, or for selling or giving away products that you do not longer use, the distance can be more important.

In addition to commercial and private rental or sale of items and tools has emerged a peer-to-peer practice of exchanging, borrowing or offering products and services, which is sometimes based on alternative money systems. Instead of paying the product or service with real money, the members of these local exchange trade systems (LETS) use points or symbolic money. For example for renting your lawn-mower for two hours to one member, you get 20 points, and with this value, you can buy one piano lesson from another member. As services are included, the social aspect is very important in these systems: people who do not have things to sell can give their time to collect points (for babysitting, giving a language lesson, repairing of a broken tap or baking a cake), that they can then use for “buying” a product or a service. Another outcome of this system are repair shops, where volunteers help people to fix a broken electric iron or a plat bicycle tyre (in the sense of do-it-yourself and sharing knowledge). The philosophy behind all this is reducing waste by repairing things and helping people with a low income to cope with it. The long term benefit of a better use of products can be a shift to more sustainable products, as especially commercial renting systems are interested in high quality tools with few abrasion effects and low maintenance needs. And it might make an end to built-in obsolescence.

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 Author: Stephanie Günther

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