Sean Gilchrist – Rentu
My garage tells a story about everything that’s wrong with how we consume. There’s a drill I’ve used twice in three years, a pressure washer that comes out once a summer, camping gear from that one weekend trip, and about £500 worth of other bits gathering dust. But here’s what really bothers me: while my stuff sits unused, my neighbours are out buying identical items for their own one-off projects. Multiply that across every household in the North West, and you start to see the environmental madness we’ve created.
Every drill, hedge trimmer, and party gazebo represent raw materials extracted from the earth, energy used in manufacturing, plastic packaging, and carbon emissions from shipping. All so it can sit in someone’s garage for 99% of its life. It’s an incredibly wasteful way to live. That realisation hit me hard when I found myself constantly buying tools and equipment for one-off projects. The environmental cost of all this unnecessary consumption was staggering, and I knew there had to be a better way.
That’s when I created Rentu – a platform where neighbours can share things instead of everyone owning their own. The environmental benefits are immediate and significant. Every time someone rents instead of buys, that’s one less item manufactured, one less piece of packaging created, and one less delivery truck on the road.
What started as my solution to reduce waste has turned into something much bigger. We now have hundreds of people across the area sharing everything imaginable – power tools, party equipment, musical instruments, baby gear. Each shared item represents multiple purchases that didn’t happen. Sophie from our area listed her rotavator and made £36 renting it to neighbours preparing their gardens. But the real win is environmental- instead of multiple people buying their own rotavators for occasional use, one shared tool is serving the whole neighbourhood.
The average UK household has thousands of pounds worth of stuff that gets used maybe once or twice a year. If we could share just half of those items, we’d dramatically reduce manufacturing demand, cut packaging waste, and slash carbon emissions from producing and shipping all this stuff we barely use.
When you can easily rent what you need from a neighbour, the urge to buy something new starts to fade. You realise that access matters more than ownership, and that sharing resources makes much more environmental sense. The response has been incredible because people genuinely want to reduce their environmental impact, but they need practical solutions that make life easier. Rentu does exactly that – it prevents waste, reduces consumption, and helps people access what they need without environmental guilt.
My drill is still in the garage, but now I see it differently. It’s not just my drill gathering dust – it’s a resource that could be helping multiple neighbours complete their projects without them having to buy their own.
The climate crisis demands that we rethink consumption and sharing what we already own is one of the simplest ways to start. Your garage might be full of solutions to your neighbours’ problems – and to our environmental challenges too.
Check out www.rentu.co.uk – the planet might thank you for it. Download it now……
