Repair Cafe Wales hosts Repair Week in Cardiff to encourage people to take part. Can repair cafes truly bring repair culture back into people’s daily lives?
In Cardiff’s Splott Repair Cafe, a young man sits on the floor, adjusting his record player. He holds the tonearm, moves it up and down, and turns a small screw near its base, while explaining its faults with a volunteer repairman. The six-year-old player has recently started to skip every time a vinyl record is played. The repair cafe is his best hope.
Trystan Roberts, 20, the owner of the record player, visited the Repair Cafe for the first time. After the record player broke, he looked online for ways to fix it, but it wasn’t easy because the delicate piece of equipment contained many rare parts. Unable to find a clear solution, he decided to repair the cafe and give it a try, hoping to get up and run again.
Trystan said that he did not know much about these technical details and could not find any useful information in the manual. “I can’t afford a new one, it would be about £200. And I have a huge collection of vinyl records, so not being able to play them is so frustrating,” said Trystan.
The Repair Cafe Wales is working to change that. There are over 100 repair cafes in Wales. These cafes not only provide technicians but also solve common accessory problems during repair. Because many parts are often difficult to obtain or expensive.
At Splott Repair Cafe, Careth Kitchen, a bicycle repair specialist, works on bikes brought in by visitors. Every month at the open house, seven or eight bikes are brought in for repair. The cafe also a shared space that provides tools, equipped with the necessary equipment and parts. Some visitors have repair skills themselves, but lack the right tools or parts, and come here to repair their bikes themselves, using the resources provided.
But the repair challenges are not limited to electronics. Melanie, a volunteer sewing specialist at the Splott Repair Cafe, says clothing, especially fast fashion, faces a bigger problem. “If you buy high-end clothing, you are more willing to cherish it and spend money to repair it. But fast fashion is different, it was never designed to last. So, people don’t even think about fixing it, they just throw it away,” said Melanie.
In response to this problem, Repair Cafe Wales held a repair Week in Cardiff and taught the public clothing repair skills through demonstration activities on Saturday, helping people learn how to repair damaged clothing, replace buttons, and repair zippers instead of throwing away damaged clothing.
The difficulty of repairing clothes is not only influenced by the fast-consumer culture, but also by the intergenerational skill gap, according to Phoebe Brown, a director of Repair Cafe Wales. “Younger people are generally less involved in maintenance than older generations. Many young people do not know how to repair items because these skills are not well passed down. Repair skills are not taught in school,” said Phoebe.
But clothing repair has a high success rate, with around 98 per cent of clothing repaired. And the overall success rate of all repair categories is between 70-80%, according to the data from Repair Cafe Wales. So, clothing repair is relatively easy, and it is an important starting point for mastering repair skills.
“Our main goal is to be environmentally friendly, to get people to throw away fewer things and, most importantly, to keep them from buying new things so often. We want to reduce carbon emissions by making fewer new products, but also help people save money,” said Phoebe.
However, the revival of the repair campaign still faces challenges. The complexity and precision of modern products make repairs increasingly difficult. Once these novel electronic devices fail, it is difficult to find the right place to repair them, according to Trystan Roberts.
“Many repairmen are older, and they are not familiar with the new equipment. Sometimes explaining to them what the equipment does and how it works is often more challenging than the repair itself,” said Trystan.
And many modern products are designed to be difficult to repair, electronic enclosures are sealed, parts are unavailable, and even repair manuals are severely restricted by manufacturers.
This is why the “Right to Repair” movement is gaining traction. The campaign argues that consumers should have the right to fix their own products or take them to an independent repair shop without being restricted by the manufacturer.
Right to Repair advocates that manufacturers should provide parts, tools, and repair manuals so that equipment can be repaired rather than replaced. If more governments join the legislation in the future, organizations like Repair Cafe Wales could help more people repair things and make repairs a part of everyday life again.
“The change is happening, but very slowly.” Getting people to change their habits about repairs is a slow process, according to Melanie. “We want to help people realize that repairing is an option and that they can make a difference. However, there are more people out there trying to push the right message, and that’s encouraging,” said Melanie.