When driving around town on garbage day and seeing perfectly good items at the curb destined for the landfill, Marisol Ramirez would pick them up, post them on Facebook community groups and have people pick them up from her porch.

So, the Aurora mom of 10-year-old son, Matthew, was thrilled to see the official launch of the Lendery on Feb. 5 at the Newmarket Public Library.

A Lendery is like a library where rather than signing out books, you can borrow things you need at the moment but don’t want to own.

That includes tools, party supplies, sports equipment, games and small kitchen appliances, such as a coffee urn and waffle maker.

“When I read about this, I was like, 'Oh my God, this is brilliant’,” Ramirez said.

“I’m excited about it. I just joined a group on Facebook that is all about reusing and repurposing. Instead of throwing things away, we’re trying to reuse them. There’s so much garbage otherwise.”

A project of the library, the Region of York and NewMakeIt, an innovative hub in Newmarket, the Lendery is the second in the region.

The first opened at Markham’s Miliken Mills Community Centre and Library last July.

The Lendery supports the region’s SM4RT Living Plan, which identifies more than 60 waste-management strategies, including initiatives to reuse, repair and repurpose items to cut down on the generation of garbage by five per cent by 2031.

If anything borrowed from the Lendery gets broken, Newmarket resident Terry O’Leary will fix it.