Make "stuff" commual to reduce consumption

The Good Human shares with us a breakthrough he had:

"While we cannot share a roll of paper towels, a television or our couches, there are some major purchases that can be shared amongst neighborhood friends or family members.

When I was growing up, two of my neighbors shared a snowblower each winter....

...Remembering this from when I was kid got me wondering about what other products could be a shared financial burden between families while also effectively reducing our consumption, waste, and raw materials cost…and this is what I came up with:

• Snowblowers, of course. These could be shared by several different families, not just two.
• Lawnmowers
• Garden tools like shovels, hoes, rakes
• Tree trimmers
• Chainsaws, weed eaters
• A Pool
• Sports equipment
• Camping equipment
• Magazine subscriptions
• Books"

Great idea. Of course, we do share books and magazines as a community at something called a library. But these other occasional use items make perfect sense to be shared within a community. And given the expense of some of these items, it's remarkable that more neighbors don't band together to purchase them.

What are other items you can think of that would work in this scheme?

Comments

[Joyce]

I have had the good fortune to live in the same town with my parents, grandparents, and married son. We all share things like tools and kitchen items. We always thought it would be silly for all of us to own all that stuff individually. I think groups of friends could easily start doing this, too.

[sara]

i live in berkeley, ca and one of our public libraries actually has a very similar thing as to what you're saying...a tool lending library! you can check out all sorts of power tools and other tool-related stuff that most people don't use too often.