About International Repair Day

This year the spotlight is clearly on its beneficial impact on emissions.

Two things are definitely true :  if you look after what you already have better you will extend the life of your goods and reduce emissions generated to meet your demands.   Secondly, as a society our efforts to find and engage repairers has dwindled over the last couple of decades as replacement prices have plummeted making repair effectively a radical act of kindness for the planet in many cases.

Mullum Cares founder - and ZEB Community Engagement Officer, Sasha Mainsbridge.

Sasha is pictured below at Shedding Community Workshop which is now the home of Mullumbimby's Repair Cafe.   Mullum Cares Library of Stuff reduces consumption (and the associated emissions) by sharing goods amongst its members.  The whipper snipper in the photo had been borrowed 65 times by 32 members on August 20 - so very likely more since then!   If those 32 members had purchased this item for $699 they would collectively have spent over $20 000 but their membership only costs them $50 per year (or $1600 collectively).  Unfortunately it's currently not possible to calculate anything close to accurately the emissions avoided by this type of operation but in 2022 Mullum Cares is partnering with the University of Queensland to see what can be done about this.

The whipper snipper was repaired by Repair Cafe  volunteer, Steve - pictured with Sasha.  Luckily if it hadn't been able to be repaired by this community team, this particular brand can be repaired by Mullum Power Tools (who have relocated to Murwillumbah!)  Mullum Cares is keen to hear about your recent repair experiences - even if that is to say you haven't had anything repaired in the last 12 months!  If you have repairers you  recommend they will be added to Zero Emissions Byron's Low Carbon Living resource page so please take the 10 minutes required to share your thoughts and recent repair experience before Oct 25.