Repair Cafe

Why Bother?

We use so much stuff.  Stuff is so cheap that as soon as it is broken we throw it away.  After it’s thrown away much of it goes into landfill and over a few hundred years the plastics might break down and end up in some unsuspecting animal.  I could go on but I am sure that you know some of the story. If we can keep stuff out of landfill we save materials (less mining or drilling for oil) we save energy (less carbon dioxide into the environment)

What’s the answer?

No single answer but repair is one of the answers.  Our parents or grandparents living in the time when stuff was more expensive would say “Mend and make do”.  Repair cafe is about Mending, not really about Making Do.  The repaired stuff should work as designed.  That is not really “making do”

Benefits.

All of the above but with the addition that a visit to the Repair Cafe is a social and learning experience.  As we repair something you are invited to stay and watch so that you learn that repairing much of the stuff is not rocket science.  You can do it yourself and, possibly, volunteer to help out with the Repair Cafe. Here’s a file to download.  Gordon wrote it for our local occasional magazine, Hedge.