Repair Cafés

Have a broken household item that you can not afford to throw away? Have a favorite sweater that needs sewing, but do not have the skills to fix it? Check your local listings for repair cafés!

Repair cafés are a new and exciting way where people can bring their broken household items and learn how to repair them for free. Many people volunteer their time at these local cafés to teach people how to fix items from iPad screens to ripped jeans. This is a great way for people to reduce their carbon footprint and participate in a creative way to recycle. Even if you do not have the money to donate or volunteer in environmental practices then this is just one of the many simple ways you can easily stay environmentally and economically smart.  

Here is a quick video showing the beginning of repair cafés along with a sense of how the community of these cafés has evolved. The video is from 2014 and surely by now in 2016 more cafés have emerged.

Here is another video showing the community and the types of skilled individuals you can hope to meet if you participate in one of these cafés. This particular café is in Pasadena, California. 

This is a really neat idea and if you live in Oregon or California there are repair cafés all throughout these states. Reduce, reuse, recycle!