Circular Communities Scotland is proud to celebrate International Repair Day, an annual ‘celebration for everyone who makes repair happen in communities around the world’, on behalf of our Share and Repair Network.
The Share and Repair Network works to support and represent repair initiatives across Scotland, helping to establish new repair projects, as well as supporting existing organisations to carry on their fantastic work.
Support services include specialised events, facilitating networking, and providing bespoke resources, guidance and support for its members, who represent all kinds of repair projects across the country.
This International Repair Day, taking place on Saturday 19th October 2024, members of the Share and Repair Network from the borders to the highlands including General Store Selkirk, Arran Repair Café, Edinburgh Tool Library, Repair Café Glasgow, Aberfeldy Repair Café and Clachworks will be hosting special events.
Want to know what’s happening in your community? Find your local repair project via the Share and Repair Network members map and get involved to go to a repair event, volunteer or donate.
This year, Repair Day marks 15 years since the world’s first repair café event in Amsterdam, which sparked a worldwide movement to tackle waste through community led repair. There are now over 2,500 repair cafes across Europe, North America and Asia, including over 50 projects in Scotland.
Repairing supports the fight against overconsumption, encouraging communities to repair items that are broken, instead of buying new, and discarding broken goods to landfill. The movement also works to pressure manufacturers to ensure items have appropriate avenues to be fixed, guaranteeing longevity of items and reducing waste.
A new report produced by The Restart Project on behalf of The Open Repair Alliance demonstrates just how far the repair movement has come. “The Rise of Community Repair – the people and the data creating a movement” shows the growth, scale and impact of repairing in communities. It draws on a wealth of data to analyse the barriers to repair, including lack of spare parts, the cost of spare parts and the fact that products are often designed to make repair impossible.
The Share and Repair Network is pleased to support its calls for further legislation to improve the right to repair, and for policy makers to be more ambitious in measures to support repair and reuse.
Together, we can make the repair movement even stronger. Visit the International Repair Day website to learn more or explore The Share and Repair Network website to discover the amazing repair work happening in Scotland.