Repair cafes, fixit clinics, restart parties – while there’s no standardized term, there’s probably one near you. They're pop-up events where volunteers help people fix their broken things, saving money and keeping items out of the waste stream. And they happen regularly at senior centers, churches, and community centers around New England.
Bruce Semple is a volunteer fixit coach for the clinics held twice a year at the Ladies' Library in Brewster, Mass. People bring him broken things - coffee makers, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners - and he comes up with solutions.
When I present him with a flickery old floor lamp at the recent spring event, he’s been on a hot streak. He’s fixed every broken thing people placed before him that afternoon.
He rests my lamp against his table to get a closer look, and quickly disassembles the socket where the bulb screws in. Then he uses a volt-ohm meter to test the connections.
Semple has dealt with plenty of problematic lamps in his day. He says the culprit is typically a dirty electrical contact.
That is certainly the case with my lamp, but it turns out it has other issues too.
"Okay, so it's also wired backwards," he tells me. "So we need to fix that."
After rewiring the socket, Semple scrapes the contacts and applies electrical contact cleaner. Then, he screws the bulb back in … and turns it on!
Not only does the lamp work, but he tells me it's much safer now, too. What's more, Semple held on to his perfect repair record for the day. And, at the same time, he showed me how to troubleshoot and fix the problem myself, should there be a next time.
What’s the worst that could happen?
"You think you're gonna break it, but if it's broken already, what harm is there?" asked Meg Morris. She chairs the Brewster Waste Reduction & Recycling Commission, which puts on these fixit clinics. She says the bigger part of a fixit coach’s job is the coaching.
"The coach is there to coach you, to give you the confidence so that if the issue comes up again you have the confidence to try and fix it yourself," Morris explained.
She worries we’re losing the skills to fix things – from darning socks to repairing appliances and electronics.
"Back in the day, you replaced the tube in the television. You didn't replace the television," Morris said. "But now you can barely get into those things. There aren't even any screws to open them up. And so we have become a throwaway world. And as a consequence, a lot of our repair shops have disappeared."
Electronic waste is particularly toxic when it ends up in our landfills. And Morris said that’s what worries her most.
According to the World Health Organization, e-waste can contain several known neurotoxicants, including lead and mercury.
But if properly recycled, e-waste can also provide valuable materials for reuse in new electronics.
The United Nations Institute for Training and Research estimates 62 million metric tonnes of e-waste was produced globally in 2022 – less than a quarter of which was documented as being properly recycled. That translates to $62 billion worth of recoverable natural resources left unaccounted for.
Mary Chaffee, who chairs the Brewster Select Board, says that’s where events like these fixit clinics come in.
"The value of this is we extend the life of broken things so these individuals or families don't have to buy a new one," Chaffee said. "We keep that item out of the solid waste stream, which saves money and is better for the environment."
Chaffee admits they can’t fix everything at the clinics. But, she says, they have an 80% success rate – which directly translates to less trash her town has to pay to take away.
