REPAIRING THE WORLD

Upper Hut is far from alone in having its own repair café. There is a growing international movement against the modern world’s disposable consumerist culture, with repair cafés everywhere from New Zealand and Australia to England, India and The Netherlands.

The website repaircafe.org reports that there are more than 1,500 such cafés worldwide. Despite the disparate locations, each café has a similar mission: to repair and renew once-loved items and prevent them from becoming landfill fodder. Many participants also report a pleasant by-product: the building of social bonds among people and communities.