Toby with repairers Margaret Hersee and Sue Scott
Toby with repairers Margaret Hersee and Sue Scott

The old war time adage of make do and mend is making a comeback as people are becoming more conscious of saving money and reducing CO2 emissions and waste to landfill.
And locally, a ‘Repair Café’ in Chesterfield is bringing a local dimension to this growing trend.
Repair Cafes are set up by volunteers to fix broken belongings, increase mending skills and reduce waste and the Chesterfield Repair Café is currently set up at the Monkey Park where local MP Toby Perkins called in to view the repairers at work.
Volunteers in Chesterfield gather once a month to repair items such as furniture, appliances, toys and clothing. Toby said: “Very often the simplest ideas are the best and this is certainly the case with the Repair Café. We are fortunate here to have a group of willing and skilled volunteers who are can fix items that may otherwise have been thrown away. Sadly, many items are not built to last anymore, because the parts are poorer quality, or they’re designed to wear out and then be thrown away, so we spend more on new equipment. I think we have become so much better at recycling our waste and initiatives like this go one step further by helping prevent the waste and hopefully make us more conscious of buying better quality or re-developing the skill of mending things, if we can, in the first place.
I was very impressed with all the team here who also like to work with the community on how to fix items themselves. I am told that within the last year the team in Chesterfield have prevented 285 kg of waste and prevented 2,310 kg of CO2 emissions. I am happy to support this worthy cause and help the volunteers have what they need to continue to repair as many items as possible which means needing access to quality spare parts and appropriate documentation.”
Repair Cafes are held every second Saturday of the month in 2019 and the last repairs are accepted at 2pm. The team can be contacted at repairs@transitionchesterfield.org.uk and please get in touch if you know how to fix things and would like to help.

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