How to repair products?

INTERVIEW

Think twice before throwing things away

“When I want to throw something away, I always think about my grandmother,” says Maryna Vyshnevska, an English teacher from Kyiv, Ukraine. The old generation did not have a lot of things, so they knew how to repair everything and make old household items, such as tin jars and kitchen tiles, look new and beautiful. These techniques are simple and good for environment.

LECTURE 1

What is repair café?

Repair Café wants to show how much fun repairing things can be, and how easy it often is. People with repair skills get the appreciation they deserve. Invaluable practical skills are passed on. Things are being used for longer and don’t have to be thrown away. This reduces the volume of raw materials and energy needed to make new products and contributes to a sustainable future and to the circular economy.

EXAMPLE

Repair Cafe Beverwijk

Repair Café in Beverwijk, Netherlands, has celebrated its first birthday with the cake and a lot of fun repairing clothes, mobile phones, coffee machines, furniture, bicycles, and walkers.

There are over 2,200 Repair Cafés worldwide. Besides the Netherlands, there are Repair Cafés in Belgium, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and in dozens of other countries around the world. Repair Café has even made its way to India and Japan!

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Repair Cafe Beverwijk celebrates its first birthday

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ADDITIONAL READING

Right to repair

Right to repair activists are optimistic about the future. A previously impossible repair soon will be possible: you can buy an iPhone screen directly from Apple, use Apple’s repair guide to install it, and have it fully work as intended, using Apple’s diagnostic software.