October 11, 2024
Everything you need already exists – why Wales is leading the borrowing revolution.

Nancy
My Grandma Nancy was always a bit of a hoarder, I remember boxes and drawers filled with all sorts. Watching her come back from the shop with big oranges wrapped in paper, then carefully unwrapping the tissue paper, smoothing it out, folding it up and placing it in the drawer with all the other folded up packaging.
Other times she would tell me the story of there only being one house in her street that could afford a phone, and one day when her sister was ill her mum sent her to the Neighbours to ring the doctor.

I guess back then it was a different type of sharing, of necessity, there just wasn’t as much stuff so conveniently available. It just wasn’t being manufactured on the mass scale it is today.
It’s necessary we share more these days, but for very different reasons. There’s quite literally too much stuff in the world. Too much EVERYTHING.
Out of sight, out of mind
The clothing mountains in Kenya and the e-waste graveyards in Ghana, are gross examples not only of our over consumption but of the global inequality when it comes to who creates the waste and who has to deal with the waste.
Please note – there are no clothing mountains in the UK whose Fast Fashion industry is valued at £10.9 billion!
Wales happens to be great, world leading even, at recycling – and Welsh Government provides information on where that recycling goes. But recycling is not the be all and end all.
We need to do more than that to deal with our waste issues. We need to go Beyond Recycling.
What we need to do is keep stuff in use for as long as possible by making them available to borrow across the Welsh network, extending the life of things until the absolutely cannot be used any more.
The other thing that we hope will happen is that as people realise we already have all the things we need so will buy less and demand the things we do buy are better quality, last longer and are repairable.
As well as recycling, some tools like drills or steam cleaners end up with organisations like us, or maybe go a local Repair Cafe to be fixed.
How many tools are there?
The estimated market for power tools world wide is 13.6 BILLION dollars. Thats a lot of tools. Thats a lot of resources used to make something that sits in most people's cupboards gathering dust.
I’m not a scientist!
This is not a scientific calculation, I’m just attempting to highlight that there’s too much stuff, we keep making more and we don’t really know where it all ends up.
A problem.
Whichever way you look at it.
Anyway, back to my story.
It’s not just my grandma in Cardiff who was careful to keep stuff in use for as long as possible, and it wasn’t just her neighbours sharing a phone.
Wales has a rich tradition of community and cooperation, deeply rooted in the practice of borrowing and sharing.
Cymortha
According to Alwyn D Rees, this history of sharing or mutual aid called ‘Cymhortha’ where members of a community would come together to help one another with large tasks, such as plowing fields or thatching roofs. This collective effort not only ensured that the work was done efficiently but also strengthened social bonds within the community and meant that not everyone had to own the equipment to do these tasks.
Gwely
In medieval Wales land was shared by families across 4 generations – no one person could own the land as it belonged to the whole family. This was a Gwely – multiple Gwelys made up a Cenedl or kin.
After 4 generations the Gwely would be dissolved and handed over to a new inheritor
The land was shared equally between the family – and women had relatively more rights in medieval Welsh society.
Miners institutes
The miners Institutes were places of learning and socializing for the people in the towns and villages in Wales’s mining heyday. By 1910 nearly every mining town and village had an Institute.
These institutes were normally paid for by the communities they were located in.
They were places of leisure, but they were also places of learning and often contained a library.
Some of these buildings are still around, not least the iconic Blackwood Miners Institute – where I have vague recollections of many a misspent night during my teens and twenties.
Bangor Uni
This one came as a pleasant surprise to me! Did you know that Bangor University was first funded by quarrymen and farmers who wanted to give the people of north Wales access to higher education?
Supporting each other
On a recent trip to St Fagans Museum I came across the stories of the women whose husbands had died in the Senghenydd Colliery disaster in 1913. The other families in the community clubbed together to buy these women a mangle so that they could earn and income from washing and survive.


Mutual Aid
During that strange and unusual time, the pandemic, that now seems like a different lifetime, this ethos of community and caring became digital. WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook became the place where we looked out for our neighbours by picking up shopping, prescriptions and more.
According to the Guardian 4 in 10 of those groups are still active today.
So, what am I trying to say?
From Cardiff to Bethesda, Wales has always been a sharing society, supporting each other through good times and bad. Not just people born here but those who call Wales their home.
It stands to reason that Wales would be leading the way in the borrowing movement.
It’s too important not to say again:
Everything we could ever need has already been made!
By sharing stuff, we already have, we’re not just looking after each other we’re looking after the planet too. We’re saving money, decluttering our homes and meeting our neighbours.
We’re continuing the age old values of mutual aid and cooperation but updated for the 21st century and beyond.
Us Welsh are resilient, resourceful and community minded. Our call to action at Benthyg Cymru is to think twice before buying something new. If you can borrow it, please do.
We’re saying we want the word Benthyg to be as universally understood as the word cwtch!
So we’re asking that you:
Don’t buy it, Benthyg it!
You can find your nearest library of things using our map, or to find out how to set one up drop us a line.