Repair Cafe Portsmouth founder Clare Seek opens the Problem Busters' eyes to the Right to Repair. We learn about the growing, global community of Repair Cafes and most importantly - how to start one in your town.
About the show:
Problem Busters is a show that explores solutions to the biggest and the smallest of problems. Hosts Jonathan Goodwin and Oliver Happy discuss making the world a better place with guests from far and wide.
About our guest:
Clare Seek is all about building community for people and planet. Based in Portsmouth, a city in south west England, she is the founder of Repair Cafe Portsmouth, Green Drinks Portsmouth and other community-based projects besides. Clare lives in Portsmouth UK with her family.
Show mentions:
- 02:00 A bit about Clare and how a move into motherhood coincided with an interest in the environment and our impact on the planet.
- Repair is at the heart of walking more lightly on the planet.
- The sheer existence of my children had a lot to do with my becoming interested in treading lightly, and my community
- 04:00 Why Repair Cafe? Started in the Netherlands by a woman who initiated what has become a global movement.
- What is a Repair cafe? A place that brings together people who fix things with people who have things to fix.
- 05:30 The setting up of a Repair cafe. 200 people showing interest within 1 day!
- Portsmouth is an island city, one of the most densely populated areas of the UK outside of London.
- 4 months later, we ran our first Repair Cafe.
- Starting with people who could repair and fix each other's stuff.
- 07:30 What is next for Repair Cafe Portsmouth? We are a pop-up event, we hold it once or twice a month. We've had to stop advertising because we are at capacity.
- Opening up a space permanently, taking it to the next step
- The library of things concept - we will work it in with that.
- 09:00 Campaign - The right to repair. A global campaign.
- Most of the carbon in electronics happens before the first use of the item.
- The right to repair campaign is focusing on manufacturers and policy makers to provide goods that are designed to last longer, can be fixed, have manuals and spare parts available.
- Right to repair as a justice issue - lobbying to create a fairer way to consume goods and services.
- 11:00 Petition - The restart project. And changing where tax is applied.
- 12:00 Shifting culture from wastage to consumers being able to repair.
- In France - they have a system that shows on products how repairable they are. Consumers are better informed.
- [13:00 Jon Coughs]
- The UK is the second biggest producer of e-waste per capita in the world. It's shocking.
- 14:30 Why is the UK so high on the e-waste scales? We have an appetite for the latest gadgets, Norway is ahead of us, we are second.
- 16:00 There is a pressure in our culture to have the latest thing and the best tech for that.
- 17:00 What do kids learn in school about sustainability? Very little. However, thankfully coming generations are taking more of an interest in the environment anyway.
- There is very little in schools that leads kids down a repair career path, although elements of sustainability are sprinkled through other career paths.
- Concept -
