Are you a handy with a hammer, a sewing supremo, or a techie-tinkerer? Or is your attitude to bin stuff when it’s broken?

We throw away vast quantities of things in Gloucestershire every year. Many items could have been repaired, but unfortunately lots of people don’t have the skills, or have forgotten how to repair things themselves. And, if you’ve ever tried to find a spare part for your electrical gizmo, only to be told by the shop assistant that it would cost more to fix it than it would to upgrade to a shiny new one, then you’ve been at the sharp end of ‘planned obsolescence’. These are the intentional design flaws planned into items by manufacturers who are always keen to sell more stuff to us!

Sending repairable items to landfill creates an even bigger problem
You could argue that it’s OK, because all of the Household Recycling Centres in Gloucestershire accept electrical and electronic items which – assuming householders put them into the right bin on site – are sent off to be recycled. But dismantling and recycling waste that has the potential for further use is something that makes little sense both financially and environmentally. Sticking waste that has the possibility of being repaired in the rubbish bin and sending it to landfill creates an even bigger problem.

So, in 2009 a Dutch journalist called Martine Postma decided that she’d had enough of feeling powerless to do anything other than send things she knew could be revived off to the tip. She organised the very first ‘Repair Café’ in Amsterdam and invited people from her local community to come along to share their ‘fixing’ skills, or to bring along household items such as burnt-out toasters and frazzled fairy lights, to see if they could be mended – for free!

A collaborative way to save money and reduce waste
Everyone loved the event and very soon the idea of a collaborative way to save money and keep things from being wasted caught on. Today there are many similar projects across Europe, including ‘Repair Café’ events in Malvern and Nailsworth, and there’s a new one planned for Cheltenham soon, which will be run by Product Design students from the University in the town.

A growing interest in learning simple skills
Since Martine came up with the Repair Cafe idea, similar projects such as the Restart Party – which focusses on fixing just electronics – have sprung up. Alongside this there is a growing interest in learning simple skills, which can then help people to repair or create their own things. Local Men’s Sheds (women allowed!) are great examples of this, and several charities in Gloucestershire also run regular carpentry and metalwork workshops.

So maybe our new attitude to broken bits and bobs should be to press the restart button. More information on reducing, reusing and recycling waste can be found at www.recycleforgloucestershire.com/article/118786/Repair-Cafes.

Kate is a member of the Gloucestershire Environmental Education Partnership (GEEP). To find out more about their work visit www.geep.org.uk.