About Us

Brunswick Tool Library is a member-led local community organization founded on the principles of sharing resources to reduce consumption and to divert waste from landfill. BTL membership is a one-off yearly cost of $85 or $55 for concession cardholders to borrow tools all year long as well receive discounts for our regular workshops run throughout the year. Our Values include Respect, Trust Sharing, Optimism, Empowerment, Collaboration, Inclusion, and Resilience. BTL members are committed to this through the sharing of resources, tools, and knowledge, to reduce the cost of living, and fully utilize our limited resources. We actively work to minimize waste by taking tool donations giving them a long life of service, many that would otherwise end up in landfill and as e-waste. We run our own maintenance program to make tools are safe and in good working order. This has given us and our members the opportunity to learn repair and maintenance skills and/or share those with our community, with appropriate recycling at end of life of the tools to complete the cycle. From this, we decided to open up and use our collective skills to run a regular community repair cafe for our members and beyond! Since 2013 we have managed to help a great many local community groups with a range of sustainable projects, things like supporting community gardens to provide tools and/or help service their tools to keep them running well and maximize use. We run a range of workshops to build confidence in DIY skills and help impart lessons of sustainability, self/community resilience, and material reuse.