Elia Bruno (BELOW), the founder and executive director of the HNL Tool Library, sits among some of the equipment that library members may borrow for their DIY projects.
People come because they want to scrape the popcorn stucco off their ceiling. Or 3D-print an accessory that turns an iPhone into a microscope. Or build a standing wave out of reclaimed lumber and found fishing nets. They come to make things from the practical to the whimsical. "We get a lot of people who just saw something on YouTube and they don't have the experience but have the confidence and bravery to try," says Greg Young, a volunteer HNL Tool librarian, who himself first came for the tools to make a balance board.
About seven years ago Elia Bruno, then a student at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, dreamed of building a garden. And a compost bin and a chicken coop while he was at it. "Immediately that dream got shut down because I didn't have any tools," he says, nor much money to acquire them. But he knew that in houses all over the island, tools sat idle. He says the average drill is used for thirteen minutes before it's tossed. "We're utilizing all this metal and plastic and creating pollution to build this drill that somebody's going to use for thirteen minutes. I thought, in an Island community, can we get more use of this stuff, save money and reduce our impact on the environment at the same time?"
In 2016, Bruno launched the nonprofit HNL Tool Library inside Re-use Hawaii's redistribution center in Honolulu, a store for salvaged construction materials. At the library, you'll find band saws, planers, drills, lawn mowers, ladders, "a lot of what a hardware store has," says Bruno. And then some, like sewing machines, a 3D printer and a laser cutter and engraver that you can book time at. Tool librarians are on hand to help point you in the right direction, and they also teach workshops ranging from making koa wood chopsticks to electrical wiring basics.
The tool library functions a lot like a book library. Members check out as many tools as they need for up to a week. Bruno says, "We want people to understand that this is more like sharing with your neighbor, your co-worker, your family than it is like a tool rental business. We're about people coming together and realizing how it just makes sense for us to collaborate."
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