The first Repair Cafe in Logan is set to open in June, but locals will get their first taste for the sustainable-living tinkerer shop at the upcoming Logan Eco Action Festival (LEAF).
The Repair Café aims to teach people how to fix their broken items while promoting the reuse of products instead of the purchase of new ones.
It’s a global phenomenon that began in Amsterdam in 2009, and now totals over 2500 stores worldwide.
The Logan cafe is expected to open in June and will be run by the Beenleigh Neighbourhood Centre on James Street.
But first, the store will have a stall at LEAF, run by Logan City Council, on Sunday 4 June.
Professor Leanne Wiseman, the coordinator of the Repair Network in Logan, said Repair Cafes were a free meeting place to bring all kinds of broken items, including clothes, furniture, electrical appliances and toys.
“Expert volunteers with repair skills in all kinds of fields come together to fix goods so they can be reused instead of throwing them away,” Ms Wiseman said.
Beyond the cafe’s “environmental imperative”, Ms Wiseman said it improved social, economic and educational standards.
“It is a really great leveler in terms of bringing community together for a common purpose,” she said.
“It’s great to see intergenerational knowledge and skill sharing too.
“We get a lot of grandparents who can mend, sew, sharpen tools or fix mechanical or electrical things, and the teenage grandkids are sitting alongside learning new skills and sharing them as well.”
Ms Wiseman said nowadays many products were made with a short life-expectancy, for the purpose of being disposed – planned obsolescence, she called it.
“Things are glued in instead of screwed in,” she said.
“You can’t even get spare parts or you can’t even get it repaired, so… you end up having to get a new one, which is bad for the environment and bad for your wallet.”
For many, reducing landfill and polution is beyond their means, but Ms Wiseman said the cafe was a great way for Logan residents to put sustainability in their own hands.
“Nobody gets any joy out of replacing a washing machine or a fridge or dryer or dishwasher,” she said.
“They’re reluctant purchases and they’re very expensive purchases.”
She said the cafe provides the opportunity to freely “problem solve” with experts to find an issue to a problem.
For those who need help fixing their own items, the Repair Cafe will be at the Logan Eco Action Festival on Sunday 4 June, from 9am to 3pm at the Griffith University Logan Campus.
