Our Impact
We don’t just believe borrowing beats buying. We can show it, in pounds and in carbon.
eLot by numbers
How we work this out: We don’t count every loan as a saving. We only count the share that replaced buying something new, in line with the method Libraries of Things use across the UK. Money saved is the new-buy price of those items, minus what members paid to borrow them. Carbon saved is the manufacturing emissions of the items that never had to be made. Where a figure is an estimate, we say so—and we’re sharpening it as we gather our own data.
What the numbers mean
Every loan is an item that didn’t need to be manufactured and one that stays in use instead of heading to the landfill. One drill, forty households and multiplied across a whole city.
We're Exeter's
Libraries of Things now run in towns and cities across the UK, backed by council and academic research showing they cut waste, save households money and strengthen local resilience. We’re the one for Exeter and are run by volunteers.