It’s not just hammers and drills: Weedwackers and cooking gear are also loanable.

THE state’s first “Tools n Things Library” aims to cut down on waste from all the one-project wonders that end up gathering dust in the laundry cupboard.

The Mount Hawthorn-based not-for-profit has about 300 bits of gear up for weekly loan so far, from angle grinders and biscuit joiners to other rarely-used items like camping gear.

It came out of Transition Town Vincent’s Community Soup night in 2019, where locals gather for a bowl of soup and to hear about ideas that’d benefit the community, and Phil Brown’s tool library idea won the vote and their seed grant. 

John and Mary Charlton are two of the founding committee members who run the Saturday morning openings. They’re in education and don’t have a background in tools, but the community-building aspect appealed to them, along with “the whole idea of not wasting things, not duplicating,” Mr Charlton says. 

Along with tools they’re keen on any items that have a social element or would build community: “We would love to have more activities for homes,” Ms Charlton says, like sporting gear, 

“bocce games, wagons” to pull the kids round on.

So far they’ve populated the shelves through donations from men’s sheds in Karrinyup and Mosman Park, Mt Lawley Rotary, “Buy Nothing” Facebook pages, donations from local pollies Emma Cole and John Carey, and Bunnings chipped in for a loaded tool chest. 

When the items come in, one of their tool-savvy volunteers tests and tags anything with electrics in it, and then they can be entered into the online catalogue for booking at toolsnthingslibraryperthwa.myturn.com

Members can book it online then pick it up ready to go at the Saturday morning openings. 

The library’s been running in a soft-opening format for part of last year and in January the group got established in their new home alongside Floreat Athena football club in the old turnstile building at 41 Britannia Road.

There’ll be a formal launch on March 20 Noon to 2pm, keep an eye on their Facebook page.