Libraries are already a great model of the sharing economy – one Burnage resident can access one of hundreds and thousands of books, delivered to their community library, all for free. They’re a great place for groups to meet up, information to be shared, and new ideas to grow, At our volunteer get together back in January, one of our New Year’s resolutions was to think of ways we could become more environmentally sustainable over 2019. So now we are here in May – how are we getting on?
Firstly we agreed made the simplest steps of deciding to make all our events plastic free, recycle our rubbish properly and be creative about how we re-use everything – like making jotting pads from used paper instead of post it notes, recycling materials into crafts, and thinking of ways we can minimise the waste me make.
We love a litter pick, and we organise an annual family event to clear up our local area – our young Litter Detectives are on hand to track down rubbish, list what is being thrown away and think about how it got there. We have lots of litter picking equipment for adults and children in the Library as part of the Keep Manchester Tidy campaign if any local groups would like to borrow them.
Southway Housing Association are our community partners and support the Library by looking after our building – they’ve fitted solar panels to take advantage of our big sloping roof and generate electricity to help power the Library.
We’re luck enough to have beautiful garden in the Library – which makes a great venue for community events and family activities. This year we’ll be giving it some TLC thanks to the Manchester Airport Community Fund and transforming it into a BEE Friendly garden to encourage pollinators to thrive – we’ll be planting apple trees, bee friendly edibles and wildflowers and will be holding a series of events over the year to celebrate all the minibeasts in the garden and find out more about the work they do – bug viewing resources and guides will be available for local groups to borrow if you fancy doing your own bug hunt!
Making seedbombs with Wildflower mix 
Making Bee and butterfly friendly seedbombs 
Bug Hotel to welcome insects
We’d love to hear from you if you would like to help us with our garden project, and hear your ideas for making your local community powered library more sustainable for the future. Get in touch with us at info@burnageactivityhub.org.uk , follow us on facebook or twitter @BurnageLibrary.