Recently, we discovered the Repair Café in North Perth. This is a fabulous community-based initiative offering both a place to salvage household and clothing items in disrepair from landfill and a way for people – of all ages – to share their skills and to build community connections!
The Repair Café concept is a worldwide movement that began in the Netherlands in 2007 and has now grown to 2,500 locations. The movement’s goal is simple: to welcome back a culture of repairing rather than being a ‘throw-away’ society. We’re told last year, globally more than 250,000kg of waste was diverted away from landfill.
The North Perth Repair Café is in View Street and is one of 17 that have popped up across Australia. Entirely run by volunteers, its 2-hour repair sessions happen on the 3rd Saturday of the month. Visitors are invited to bring broken items, including cherished toys, loved clothing and even suitcases from home to access helpful equipment to fix them either on their own or to learn direct from a skilled volunteer with the know-how.
If you have nothing to repair, you can lend a hand with someone else’s repair job and perhaps enjoy a cup of tea or coffee. Our team member, who visited spoke to an older gentleman who was freely offering his skills and time, couldn’t help but chuckle when she heard him say, “I do this because my wife likes it when I come here, as it gets me out of the house – and her way!”
Visit the North Perth Repair Café’s Facebook page for updates on their opening hours, what they can technically fix, to volunteer your services, or just how to meet a band of like-minded people who could well help make the ‘too-hard-basket’/landfill divide, less popular!
