If you’ve ever looked at a wedding registry, you might have a sense of how many uni-tasking kitchen appliances there are on the market. Most kitchens have more gadgets than they can hold, and most people aren't using their canning equipment/bread machine/cider press very often. So wouldn't it make more sense to share?

In Portland, a couple of collaborative consumption centers are working off of that idea. In north and now southeastern Portland, residents can borrow kitchen tools from a lending library of gadgets. North Portland Preserve and Serve is donation-based: just schedule some quality time with that steam juicer on the organization's website, and put up enough apple juice to last through the week/winter/year. Then get that sucker out of your kitchen.