Skills used to repair items at new cafe
A new service in Blairgowrie and Rattray that aims to reduce the amount of items going to landfill and help local residents save money has started up.
The Repair Cafe opened its doors for the first time last month and will take place on the last Saturday of every month at Nest Creative Spaces in Blairgowrie’s Wellmeadow, with the next session being held this weekend.
The initiative is a collaboration between Nest, which is providing the venue, Blairgowrie, Rattray and District Climate Cafe and Strathmore Men’s Shed.
Volunteers donate their time and expertise to fixing broken items that people bring to the cafe, and which may have otherwise been thrown away.
Tracie Dick, from Nest Creative Spaces, explained: “The idea is ‘fix it, don’t bin it’.
“We’re offering a repair service to individuals who would otherwise have had to throw their items away and which would have ended up in landfill.
“Our volunteers are able to fix a range of goods such as small electrical items, wooden items, jewellery and clothing.”
Those involved with the Repair Cafe have been considering it for some time and visited other similar ventures to see how they operate.
They are also working alongside Circular Communities Scotland as part of the Share and Repair Network.
The Blairgowrie and Rattray Repair Cafe works on a drop-in basis.
If no one is on hand to fix it there and
then, items can be left and picked up once they are repaired.
Any cost for parts will be discussed in advance of any work being carried out, and if people would like to make a donation to cover the costs of refreshments they are welcome to do so.
Tracie said: “We want to support the local community and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by providing this service.
“As well as repairing items, we can also provide advice and signpost people to local businesses that may be able to fix something that we can’t or that is not appropriate for us to do.”
The Repair Cafe is also on the lookout for more volunteers to get involved.
Tracie said: “We’re hoping to develop a directory of volunteer repairers that we can call on to fix specific items.
“They don’t need to attend the Repair Cafe itself but just be on hand should we need a specific skill set for a particular item.
“And as well as more volunteers, we’re also looking for people who can offer PAT testing to contact us.”
Tracie said that the inaugural session had been popular.
“A number of items were brought in for repair at our first session in August – everything from a radio to a chopping board, and jewellery to jackets – one of which has been repaired already.
“We’re hoping to record what we have fixed – and therefore saved from going to landfill – as part of a wider initiative that will help to provide evidence that, for example, parts should not be discontinued which would allow for more items to be fixed rather than becoming obsolete, and potentially even influence government policy and manufacturers’ guidelines.
“We’ll give this a shot and see how it goes. Hopefully it will prove to be very popular and will divert lots of items from ending up in landfill and save people the cost of having to replace things.”
The Repair Cafe is open from 10.30am to 12.30pm on the last Saturday of every month. For further information, follow ‘Blairgowrie Repair Cafe’ on Facebook.