Our next event:
Saturday 3rd June – The Greehouse Theatre, 12noon – 3pm, Thames Barrier Park, E16 2HP
Repairs are on a first come first serve basis. No bookings required. Repairs are limited to one repair per person.
Bookable Children’s workshops at the Repair Cafe:
What is a Repair Café?
Repair Cafés are a place for reuse and repairs to happen. Whether this be repairs to electrical devices, clothing or bicycles, an expert repairer will share their skills to repair your broken item, talking you through the repair as it happens. Repair cafes are a perfect opportunity to add a new lease of life to items that could have ended up in the bin, plus a great chance to learn a new skill that you can put to practice on a future repair yourself.
Benefits of Repair Cafés
Did you know we discard 155,000 tonnes of electricals every year! That’s the equivalent weight of around 485 Elizabeth line trains!
But wait there’s more… Did you know an estimated 336,000 tonnes of used clothing is discarded every year in the UK? That’s right thrown in the bin and not reused or recycled!
But why is this an issue you may ask? Our textile and electrical consumption and poor reuse and recycling impacts the environment. “Currently, over 5% of the UK’s total annual carbon and water footprints result from clothing consumption. But if clothes stayed in active use for nine months longer (extending their average life to around three years), this would reduce their carbon, water and waste footprints by 20-30%. Extending the average life of clothes by just three months of active use would lead to a 5-10% reduction.” Love Your Clothes The increase in disposal of our electrical items continues to contribute ‘to pollution and increasing the demand for components like rare earth elements, which can have a damaging impact on the environment when sourced.’ BBC, 2020
Choosing to repair rather than ditch and buy new extends the life span of items that little bit longer. Saving money, waste and the planet!
Check out the results from the recent Repair Cafes delivered by ELWA in partnership with the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Newham and Redbridge. Thanks to The Restart Project’s Fixometer, we’re able to share key stats like the approx. prevention of CO2 emissions.
For more information on Repair Cafes and to find an event new you visit…
The Restart Project Repair Cafe.org
Transition Town Ilford- Repair Cafe
Check out one of our recent Repair Cafés covered by Londonist
Listen to our recent interview with The Naked Scientists
