Repair Cafe Culture - Part 5: How Did We Get Here?

Images: Left: Visiting SWEEEP Kuusakoski, the UK's largest eWaste recycling centre. Just a fraction of the global story. More on this (link). Right: The fable of exponential growth, using a chessboard.

Is 62 Million Tonnes of e-Waste a Year a Lot or a Little?

As humans, we often have a hard time visualising big numbers, as illustrated in the Rice/Wheat & Chessboard Fable… If unfamiliar - a hustler asks the king to reward them for a given tricky job, by agreeing to pay them in cumulative grains of rice, doubling for each square on a chessboard: 1+2+4+8+16…to the 64th square. The king laughs at what he believes is no big quantity to pay. He doesn’t realise that by the final square, the debt is at 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (18 quintillion) grains of rice. In short, more than all the rice in the world, most likely.

So when I looked at the UN estimate that in 2022, around 62 million tonnes of e-waste was produced globally - per year. The issue is not unlike the chessboard - in that e-Waste is not ‘going anywhere’: It does not ‘compost’, and as we all know, it takes hundreds or thousands of years to degrade, leaching harmful toxins into the environment, not to mention the wastefulness. And even taking into account the recycling efforts, which presently are around 22%, the recycling is still eclipsed by the growth of the problem!

An Exponential Problem: eWaste is Like a Compound Interest Loan Shark.

The ‘62 million per year’ figure was up 82% from 2010; On track to rise another 32%, to 82 million tonnes, in 2030. (Full Report).

Image: Graph from eWaste Report, with my lime-green ‘22% line’ added roughly to show mediocre recycling efforts, continuing ‘as is’ not being sufficient to really slow things down.

Don’t forget this is 62-82 million tonnes per year, so this is cumulative! It is not an exaggeration to say by 2050, we truly could be ‘drowning in waste’. Although to put it more accurately, the poor already are, but it might actually start to be an issue for the middle classes at this point, in other words, it’ll become ‘intolerable’ for the majority. So, one can appreciate we’re at risk of living a ‘Trash-Chessboard Fable’ ourselves if not careful, and like the king, we fail to see the exponential crisis.

Estimates vary, but around ~22% of e-Waste is recycled, but some estimates think as low as 17% (link). With around 350 million tonnes of eWaste on the planet already, it really highlights how much of this really is a relatively new phenomenon, if you consider in 2022 that 62 million tonnes were produced in that year alone!

This would be like the king thinking that he can solve the issue of exponential waste, by asking for 2 in every 10 grains of rice… Nice try, but by square 64, you’re still at 14,388,460,377,493,500,000 (14 quintillion) grains of rice. So it’s fair to say we shouldn’t try and apply such un-mathematically attuned thinking to our eWaste (and other waste forms) problem(s)...

So this is a very small ‘slice’ of the problem being dealt with. Taking some very crude calculations; this would mean if we assume a rate of around 3.55% compound growth per annum (62→82 million tonnes from 2022 to 2030), and assuming our consumerism doesn’t increase in rate (unlikely!!), and our ~22% recycling rate stays the same, (hopefully not), this would mean by 2050 we’d have gone from the present ~350 million tonnes of eWaste on Earth, to around 2.75 trillion tonnes of eWaste not being recycled - around 8x in only 3 decades. This is also assuming no increase in consumerism from all the BRIC countries that don't also have a burgeoning middle-class who will naturally want to be ‘carefree consumers’ as The West has enjoyed in its halcyon days post WWII. To put it in real terms, even with my wildly conservative estimates, if we continue unabated, and indeed not dramatically adjusting our behaviours, you will likely live to see a new generation (in around 3 decades) ‘inherit’ a tsunami of an eWaste problem. And this is just eWaste.

If we now consider plastic, a related issue, given that most consumer goods that contain electronics are encased in plastic. It’s sobering to realise that we’ve gone from 2 million tonnes of global plastic waste in 1950 (around its industrial genesis) to around 430 million tonnes per year in 2022, with the UN estimating this may triple by 2060 (link). Do I need to also ‘run the numbers’ on this to further make the point - surely not.

Technology Will Save Us…Perhaps. Perhaps Not.

As a self-confessed ‘techno-optimist’, even my optimism doesn’t stretch so far to say we’ll not need to re-evaluate our relationship with consumerism. Scientists, Designers, and Engineers can do wonderful things, and I’m sure we will develop some better ‘plastic-eating microbes’, and we will hopefully mandate the ‘no-brainer’ PANT (glass/plastic bottle return initiatives) beyond a few select countries.

These things are all good, but the fact remains, no matter how much Apple* might talk about ‘Sustainability’ by responsible sourcing of its metals, or increasingly the percentages of recycled material in its plastics - all good things - but if it’s still desperately trying to sell you a new iPhone in two years time, and Apple Care only lasts a couple years (a strong hint as to how long they think it’s designed to realistically last), would you really say an iPhone is ‘designed for longevity’? Even if it might claim to be ‘more repairable’ - if it’s prohibitively complex, expensive, or just inconvenient, it’s hard not to be sceptical about the true economic intentions of a company’s business model, in contrast - underdogs like Fairphone, who offer 8 years parts and software assurances which substantiate longevity at time of release of Fairphone5, not to mention the glowing “10/10” iFixit reviews on repairability.

*For legal reasons I should say this is not only just Apple who could be better, but I feel as the apparent ‘darlings of design’, I implore them to lead the way here, as of course many other phone/consumer goods manufacturers are doing far less, as a quick browse of TEMU.com (the SHIEN of electronics) will prove. Full disclosure, I’m an Apple-fan-boy, but will be blunt to say, I’d rather they ‘get more Fairphone’ than bore on about an incrementally better camera, or trying to justify that Apple Intelligence (Apple’s AI slogan) needs to go from a ‘mega-processor’ to a ‘mega-mega-processor’ - you’re not fooling anyone; most AI that isn’t trying to cure Cancer, will in fact run fine with surprisingly little processing, if you have an internet connection and are willing to wait a few extra nano-seconds for it to do some stuff on Cloud computing. To be sure AI is not without its own environmental concerns, but making AI run at blistering petaflops on every piece of hardware designed to be obsolete in 2-3 years is patently crazy, and arguably data centres (for all their ills) are the equivalent of the economy/sustainability of scale of, say, ‘Public Transport vs Driving a Car’ everywhere in a city. If we must have AI, it should be ‘lightweight’ on hardware, and heavyweight on cloud, as opposed to heavyweight on both, just for the sake of convenience. Or at least make it upgradable - like Fairphone and FrameWorks. These examples are of course, not as epic as Apple, but they make it harder to claim that ethical design is ugly, poor quality, and ‘hair shirt’ anymore.

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth[’s eWaste Problem].

As Matthew (5:5), would have said, if he’d updated his Beatitudes, in the 21st Century. This is the ‘inconvenient truth’ of a lot of consumerism. China has often been cited as having a bad track record on environmental and ethical issues, and of course, many claims are valid. But the countries who depend on China to make their unfeasibly cheap consumer goods should not be so quick to ‘point the blame’. Consider how, when manufacturers are squeezed to produce fast-fashion consumer goods for wealthier countries at mind-bendingly low prices, it is any wonder corners are cut, such that the health and safety of People and Planet suffer horrendously?

China famously stopped accepting ‘non-recyclable trash’ from the US in 2018 (link). Needless to say this has both made the US (and other Level 4 countries) initially panic, and find other Level 1-3 (poorer) countries to ship to, but arguably it has prompted some self-reflection, and triggered an increase in recycling efforts ‘at home’.

It comes down to how one wants to frame the data. If we take this first example, below, in 2016 China certainly is the ‘bad guy’ of eWaste. Boo China! The UK is not even in the top 10 - I must be so smug, as a lovely British consumer. But wait…

Yet if we adjust this for ‘per capita’ (i.e. divide by the population), so you get what each country’s personal impact is, the picture becomes more uncomfortable to look at (for me at least)…

Suddenly, as individuals, UK citizens and US citizens are putting out high kgs of eWaste, and perhaps surprisingly, the ‘darlings’ of Eco Living - the Scandinavians (including Norwegians) - are suddenly top of the leaderboard! Who’d have believed that a country with such a ‘green’ image, (nonchalantly propped up by a colossal oil industry), would be the worst offender. Who knew!

Norway is of course one of the richest countries per capita in the world, often ranked as one of the ‘happiest places to live’, and with a wonderful quality of life. It recycles some of its waste (average in rankings, it seems here), so that tells a different story about ‘who’s picking up the tab’ for that lovely lifestyle.

To be clear, my point is not to ‘pick a chart’ that is ‘true’ - it’s that these two illustrate the nuance: Rich countries like Norway, UK, and US etc. need to realise they collectively live a highly consumerist, fast-fashion lifestyle - and need to bear some responsibility for the seemingly ‘high’ figures in poorer countries like China, who are making the nice things for their nice lives.

Furthermore, it is not fair to say to countries like some in Africa, who are just going through a ‘lifting up’ of their lower and middle classes, that they should single-handedly make the same immediate environmental sacrifices that the other more established countries need to. To say the UK should ZERO ‘avoidable waste’ by 2050 (link) is highly ambitious; to say a country like Africa has to do the same, without any help, is insanity.

And we’ve not even touched on the legacy of Colonialism…

Reparations in the Form of Supporting Upward Mobility.

The year 1441 is widely considered to mark the beginnings of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, when Portugese explorer, Antam Gonçalvez set sail to West Africa, in search of animals and mineral resources - he ended up triggering a series of events that, meant the in the 1450’s Pope Nicolas V issued a series of papal bulls that granted Portugal the right to enslave sub-Saharan Africans. (link). The Pope issued a mandate to the Portuguese king, Alfonso V, and instructed him:

. . . to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever …[and] to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit . . .

In religious [and hence legal] terms of the day, this effectively legitimised and sanctioned slavery as we know it in the West. Other Europeans, sharing a common religious zeal, also embraced slavery.

Image (Credits): Cover of Crónica dos feitos da Guiné by Gomes Eanes de Zurara, published in 1460, Paris, France, courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. This chronicle documents the early development of Portuguese interests in large-scale slave trafficking out of West Africa.

If this is feeling a little ‘tangential’ to the subject of eWaste, it’s worth remembering that this power hierarchy (and factors which lead to it, like Slavery) will need to be discussed in more nuanced terms than just what the privileged nations of the G8 say is best of the planet. The UK, EU and US should set aggressive targets for Net Zero, but to presume other countries should follow-suit when they are still suffering the effects of colonialism, wars or are just simply less fortunate (limited natural resources, ‘Acts of God’, etc.), seems deeply unfair, and assuredly unrealistic as their countries gain power and influence.

Perhaps it is not unreasonable to expand the definition of ‘reparations’ to include adjustment for poorer countries to first rightfully move up ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’, but also to expect wealthier countries of today to support their transition to move closer to ‘Net Zero’, through technology and diplomacy.

I don’t feel this is simply a ‘bleeding heart liberal’ viewpoint, but rather a ‘rationalist’ approach; when if one considers today the largest city in the world is Tokyo, but by 2050, many Indian and African cities will dominate in population, it does not take much imagination to ask, will they continue to do what their previous ex-colonialist nations say? Not likely. Like it or not, Net Zero will require a realism the likes of which the superpowers of today will be unaccustomed to, because unlike money and military might, the planet does not operate with ‘lines on a map’. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat does not observe national boundaries.

Image: Biggest Cities changing dramatically over the next 25 years. Source: Born to Engineer. (link).

Global Net Zero is impossible to achieve without a ‘balancing act’ whereby wealthier nations may well even have to be Net Positive, in order to ‘cancel out’ the understandable shortfall of less fortunate countries still very far off Net Zero.

Why I Remain Cautiously Hopeful.

If this blog were a hill, you just did the ‘hard bit’. So let’s take stock of those facts, and consider the possible positive scenarios. As Engineers we shouldn’t flinch at hard truths, but we also shouldn’t use them as an excuse to shrug it off and do nothing. We can perhaps blame consumerism and marketing for us desiring various goods, but surely we need to accept our part as the makers and manufacturers of said consumer goods. Even if you remain understandably concerned about the future, one of the blessings of being an Engineer is to realise we can make the problem worse by creating more waste, or we can invest time in other ways to better, even if it may feel inconsequential, we can try and do our bit.

Whatever the global politics of eWaste will become, it seems as consumers, we all have to deepen our awareness of the nuances of the global supply chain, and who is making our things, and at what holistic cost. We cannot measure our virtues by what happens merely on our sovereign soil, but be honestly ‘aware’ of the externalities of where those constituent parts come from, and the human and environmental cost of getting them to us.

The reason eWaste is a particularly interesting aspect of global politics is that this is perhaps the first time in human history where we’re able to literally and metaphorically ‘flush our s**t away, for someone else to deal with’. The proverb, “There’s Money In Muck”, has been around since the pre-industrial times, and perhaps our eWaste is at a ‘tipping point’ where we will have to begin to treat it as a viable resource that has value. “Landfill Mining” would seem an improbable term a couple of centuries ago, and yet one Industrial Revolution later, here we are. Perhaps it is a term worth tracking, as the economics of minerals and chemicals shift dramatically over the next few decades. It is only by redefining these relationships with politics and manufacturing that Repair starts to come into perspective.

The question is whether this will be the dystopia of Mad Max’s scavenged junkyards, and wars for potable water, or a Sci-Fi utopia of StarTrek and the like where we intelligently recapture all waste, from urine to metals, and see it as a normal and rational circular behaviour to sustain our life harmoniously with each other and the planet.

It is not to say that Repair alone is the ‘End-Game’, but perhaps it’s the ‘Warm-Up’ to the Bigger Game? Or to put it another way, is it the start of a new approach for humankind to truly see a spent or broken object as a thing of residual value, and not simply worthless and uninteresting ‘waste’?

Are Repair Cafes ‘A Drop In The Ocean’ or a “Mindset Shift” Worth Engaging With?

One cannot read books like Material World, Politics of Geography, or Chip Wars, without realising that our world is a complex web of trade, commerce and politics. It’s very clear we have a problematic relationship with ‘gaining things’ to balance our feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.

Modern Marketing may have a lot to be responsible for (as Adam Curtis’ Century of the Self, or Eric Fromm’s writings have pointed out (example)), but in many ways that is also a hopeful notion: We actually have enough resources to feed everyone on the planet (link), and if the 2019 Pandemic had any silver lining at all - perhaps it served as a reminder that we can actually create global efforts (imperfect as they were) which ostensibly ‘got it done’ more or less in the right way. When motivated, we can do the right thing it seems, so that gives me hope that our ‘over-consumerism problem’ is ‘man-made’, and hence it perhaps can be ‘un-made’ by us humans.

To be clear, going to a Repair Cafe is no ‘magic bullet’, any more than us all becoming a Buddhist Monk will make everything better in the world. However, as with Buddhist teachings, one can still take inspiration from them, in pursuit of a less consumerist, and perhaps more therefore a more substantive life.

Indeed, the rise of ‘Wellness’ in the past years may have its hype and hypocrisy (Gwyneth Paltrow’s teaching are arguably, pseudo-scientific at best, and have been deemed dangerous at their worst), but overall, the idea that the rich and wealthy might need to find happiness not in buying more stuff, but in spending more time with friends and family and being in nature, is surely not to be sneered at.

And so to, Repair Cafes are perhaps another ‘stone on the cairn’ of our collective weaning ourselves off ‘crack-pipe-consumerism’...

Repair Cafes as a Form of ‘Rehab’ from ‘Crack-Pipe-Consumerism’.

The help group, Alcoholics Anonymous, reassures us that ‘admitting you have a problem, and turning up - is half the battle’. Not to be too self-flagellating (or pious) here, but what I loved about Repair Cafes is that a day spent trying to fix something, is quite literally a day I didn’t spend thinking ‘oh well, I’ll just buy a new one and chuck this in the bin’ [or donate to a charity shop, to assuage my guilt].

This is not to say everything can be fixed, and nor is it always worth it to travel to a Repair Cafe for a ‘lost cause’, when it’s 99% likely to be un-fixable, as transport has an environmental cost too! (Please visit recycle your electricals.com if you have reasonably exhausted all options!). However, the act of recycling deepens our awareness of not only appreciating the often rather fascinating design of the things we take for granted, but also we sometimes get it fixed, and I’m yet to meet anyone who isn’t rather proud when they surprise themselves by fixing something they’d nearly given up hope on. That ‘hope’ is not just confined to material goods, it undoubtedly is a positive vibe that goes beyond the moment.

I’m not saying Repair Cafes will eclipse seeing your child be born, your first kiss, or even your football team score at the world cup (hopefully this is a descending order!), but somewhere on the spectrum of ‘good vibes’, sense of belonging/achievement, and often a bit of levity after a hard week: Repair Cafes deliver more endorphins than you might think.

The Joy of Fix(ing).

I used to work at Sugru, a mouldable glue company, and it all began with founder Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh, wanting to ‘fix her stuff’, especially iPhone charging cables, which always frayed/cracked at the ends. She created a wonder-super-glue-putty that was hand-mouldable. This, in turn, became a remarkable business that was ultimately considered one of Time’s best inventions of 2010, and eventually sold to German adhesives multinational TESA.

One thing I learned in my 3 years there as Head of R&D and Technology, leading a complete reformulation of the glue, was that people were often apprehensive about fixing at first, but if they ‘got over their first fix’, they became like evangelical missionaries... The Book of Mormon has nothing on how zealous a ‘converted’ fixer is! It’s a wonderful thing to behold.

Repair Cafes are like that, but multiplied by a sense of community (and some H&S checks!). Without getting too ‘therapist’ or ‘self-help’ about this, we all like to find a sense of belonging, to ‘find our tribe’. As this is being posted on DesignSpark, which has over 1.4million followers, many of which are Engineers, I feel I’m in ‘good company’ and need not overstate how much we all love solving a problem, and false-modesty aside, are more often than not are better than most people at fixing stuff. I’m sure like me, you’ve been asked by friends to fix things, and are often somewhat embarrassed by the subsequent adoration and effusive praise heaped upon you for doing what you thought was ‘kinda obvious’ - be it cleaning battery terminal contacts, changing a fuse, unblocking, unjamming, or whatever seemed to work. Or what Dilbert creator Scott Adam wonderfully illustrated in “The Knack”.

Which is why I think Engineers should sign up to volunteer at Repair Cafes.

Compared to the ‘average Jo’ or ‘Joe’ - we are pretty darn awesome at fixing stuff, and a couple hours in a nice place, where you get to geek out, enjoy a drink and a snack - and generally make people’s day.

Oddly, I’ve had almost as much praise and gratitude - even when the thing didn’t get fixed - but perhaps because it ‘gave closure’ to someone feeling an ‘expert’ has ‘confirmed it dead’, and they can ‘move on’. If you’ll forgive the macabre metaphor, this is a valuable function of an engineer to ‘attempt and confirm’ what can and what cannot be fixed. Considering there are not many places like this in the general public, it provides a valuable function to save our electricals from becoming eWaste - or even just unnecessarily recycled (as in materials only).

Furthermore, The Restart Project not only runs Repair Cafes, but also sells (second-hand) things that are unwanted - but have been successfully and safely repaired and reconditioned. Again, the ‘joy of the fix’ is something that evidently the volunteers like.

Finding Your Calling.

I’ve worked with a lot of engineers, and the fact is many are very shy, and some are diagnosed as being ‘on the spectrum’. I’m dyslexic myself, and although I’m wary about calling all neurodiversities ‘superpowers’ (they have their issues, for sure!), what I do like about Repair Cafes is that if you are reclusive and don’t like an excessive amount of chatter, or emotional engagement - you can be ‘left to get on with it’ without feeling obliged to be super-social.

In some of the Repair Cafes I visited, some people work in near-silence, and perhaps even with another fixer, they’re exchanging the bare minimum of instructions and data. In contrast, you have people (arguably like myself) who will happily give a rolling narrative - a ‘stream of consciousness’ style - of their fixing efforts, and enjoy ‘teaching’ the person who brought the item as I work. There is no expectation to be chatty or calm. Both have their merits and more often than not, the ‘team’ operate holistically - where when one ‘fixers’ is having difficulty, they can ask for help from other fixers and that’s often a really great bonding experience, and everyone leaves a little wiser from the day than they started.

Repair Cafes in my brief survey of a few in London and Hong Kong seem consistent with other people’s observations - that they are a broad church, and everyone is welcome there. Egos are kept in check, and sharing is encouraged. Without the pressure of the workplace to ‘perform’, the atmosphere is determined, but not stressed or braggadocious - because the win is often seen as ‘team’. Much like TV [engineer] teams like Mission Impossible, Charlie's Angels, The A-Team, and so forth, (I need more modern culture references here!) there is a pride in a ‘bunch of misfits’ somehow pulling off the big win(s). And that is what I love, and what I recommend - whether you have broken stuff, or you like fixing broken stuff, it’s worth trying at least once. The chances of a repair going well seem to be around 50% for random stuff, and about 70%+ if they are familiar with certain types of product/repairs… so, pretty good odds, and as I said, even if it can’t be fixed, often the process is enjoyable.

Engineers [Young and Old] Assemble.

I cannot deny that many Repair Cafes have a bias towards men, and a bias towards retirees. But, this is changing. More women are working there, and students are joining in also.

For me, this dynamic of young and old is an especially potent mix. It’s not just old school Kung Fu ‘shifu’ and other such archetypal Master / Apprentice dynamics, but a two-way synergy: Young Engineers most certainly bring new skills, tools, and processes to the table. Whilst older seasoned professionals regularly impress with ‘still got the moves’ knowledge, which comes from simply a lifetime of problem solving and a defiant mindset.

Indeed, that is where perhaps the most memorable interaction occurred on my first day at a Repair Cafe, with Boyd, an ex-surgeon, who volunteers at Haringey Fixers.

We were attempting to fix a pair of glasses, where the ‘arm’ had broken off the hinge. I suggested a novel trick I knew of winding cotton around the metal and inserting it into the socket for a friction fit, then adding a drop of superglue - which creates a sort of make-shift ‘fibreglass’ - bonding plastic to metal better than without the cotton intermediary (a trick I learned at Dyson). The trouble was, it was super fiddly, but Boyd, not only having superior dexterity to me - being an ex-surgeon, but also knowing a better way to ‘whip’ the cotton after winding it around like a fly-fishing binding. However, Boyd was gracious and appeared similarly impressed by learning a new ‘hack’, and of course, I was in awe of his use of surgical tools he’d brought along to perform such fiddly ‘operations’.

For me this wonderfully illustrates why volunteering works so well at Repair Cafes - and not forgetting the happy ‘customer’ not having their glasses fixed, and not having to pay a couple hundred pounds even from the alleged saving of ‘spec-savers’ (it may have been Vision Express for all I know, but my joke works better like this, so there!).

Lastly, having students there reminded me how much I learned in my first graduate job at Dyson - by often having to ‘fix’ stuff. At the time, this ‘learning the ropes’ work can make you feel you’ve been given the ‘less glamorous’ jobs to do, but youthful enthusiasm (or arrogance) aside, it’s essential learning to the engineering profession. Yet in the Repair Cafe, the expectations can be reversed: even a ‘lowly’ graduate, with promise, might be promoted to ‘high ranks’ as ‘fixer’ within relatively little time.

Of course, the irony is, one soon realises, not all fixes are equal, and again, experience often counts for a lot, and even at a Repair Cafe, a degree of apprenticeship is needed to not only become competent and confident - but to also ensure one’s work is safe. Indeed, this is where the collective knowledge and training is vitally important, as any fixed products are PAT tested for safety, and looked over by the ‘more experienced’ fixers, to ensure it’s good to go home to the public. Although there are of course hierarchical similarities with the workplace, the ‘pressure’ is less, and indeed, another advantage of being in a ‘club’ outside work, is that one can often seek unofficial mentors (or peers) in fixers. I suspect many a younger fixer may have confided over a cuppa tea of their woes and workplace troubles, only to have a calm counselling session, allowing them to benefit from not only their de facto mentor’s fixing experience, but their lifetime of workplace experience.

In short, I think the irony is retired engineers are here in numbers, but it should be the youngbloods who are flocking here to gain a headstart in life - personally and professionally! And at the risk of pointing out the blindingly obvious - ‘it’s who you know, not what you know’ - most certainly applies here, and not to place excessive expectations on retirees, but the knowledge of the ‘hustle’ remains, and it’s not uncommon to meet someone older who’s worked at a company you’d love to work at, and would surely give you some tips!

Do you really need any more convincing, if you are between early or mid-career, not to sign up? And if you’re older, you probably need less convincing and I’ll look forward to picking your brains at coffee break when I see you!

As for the other skills you can learn whilst there - that forms the basis of the next section of ‘field notes’ from visiting Haringey Fixers, in London, as well as Vessel Repair HK and Repair Cafe HK, in Hong Kong.

I hope you enjoy it, and seek out your nearest Repair Cafe soon!

Contents:

Part 1: Repair Like Your Life (and Career) Depends On It! (link)

Part 2: Why Engineers and Designers Love Volunteering at Repair Cafes. (link)

Part 3: Five Design Issues, Every Engineer Should Know About. (link)

Part 4: Twelve Things I Learned At Repair Cafes. (link)

Part 5: How Did We Get Here? (This article)