This is the third in a three part series of blogs that look at: 1: Why Repairs Cafes Matter; 2. The policy needs for a right to repair; 3. What a repair future would look like.
Most of our Repair Café repairers are older people. The little culture of repairing we still have will die out if we’re not careful, and if it doesn’t link up with a younger generation. I’m hopeful that we can change this, as learning to fix something is educational for the individual, and it also grows a shared knowledge in neighbourhoods, and people can start teaching each other.
As more and more of us start bringing back our repair culture, we’ll recognise that material products have a whakapapa, and are worth something more than the financial value.
One thing is clear to me – recycling is outdated and no-longer an option. We can’t recycle our way out of the mess this world is in, but with a Right to Repair and Repair Cafés, we can repair the future.
Much repair knowledge can be shared at a Repair Café! You can learn about the design of your broken household item when your volunteer repairer first dismantles it, if parts are designed for obsolescence and/ or difficult and expensive to obtain, and hopefully how to fix it. Photo courtesy of Birkenhead Repair Café, Auckland, 21 May 2021
In the future, I look forward to us choosing the items that we buy very carefully. We’ll research and know how repairable something is, and our decisions to buy products will be based on repairability and durability. And that’s what will predominantly be sold to us on the market.
We’ll treasure our belongings, and be keen, knowledgeable and interested in how to repair it, and pass them on to others intact.
We’ll have a more localised circular economy. Local manufacture and local repair will be thriving. Our educational institutions could be teaching circular product design and repair across to ensure another generation are learning much needed practical skills to create and maintain sustainable technologies.
When we buy something, we’ll think about its end of life and how that’s managed.
If you can imagine this too – join us and support the campaign! Add your name at: Make it our Right to Repair!
This blog was first published on the Greenpeace Aotearoa website.
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