The life, death, and resurrection of my faithful circular saw
What the repair cafe has taught me about waste, repair, and connection
I have to start this story with something very sad: My circular saw - the one we used to build our whole (tiny) house - died. It stopped rotating halfway through a cut about 6 months ago and never turned on again.
But before you go drown in the pity you feel for me, I have to reassure you that I’m not going to leave you depressed for too long. Because this story ends with it working again, thanks to 85 year old Syd and the other volunteers who run the Hastings Repair Cafe.
I wasn’t actually that attached to my circular saw. It did feel like a bit of a faithful friend after using it for the biggest building project of my life. But at the end of the day it was replaceable. One hundred and fifty bucks at Bunnings would have got me a new one, and it probably would have lasted another good three years before it too overheated and blew its shitty little plastic parts.
But something had stopped my partner and I heading down to Bunnings to replace it. We’re by no means hardcore zero waste people, but it did feel just a bit too sad to chuck the thing into landfill and let it break down over the next gazillion years. So for months we did the next best thing, keep it in the shed broken on the shelf. Obviously.
We didn’t want to throw it out, but we also had no clue how to fix it.
That was until.. we found the repair cafe!
It’s actually a global movement - there are repair cafes all over the world. The idea is that people bring their broken things in to the event, have a cup of tea together with handy volunteers and learn to fix their stuff together. You make new friends, learn new skills and save broken stuff from being destined for landfill!
I did some googling, found one near me, and went along; armed with my broken circular saw, and a chopping board that was a lovely wedding present but had sadly split in half after years of use.
I went alone the first time, and have to admit I was feeling pretty nervous. As I usually am in new social situations. But the folks there were so friendly, and there were repair people of all different genders, so I didn’t feel like anyone dumbed down their repair explanations because of my gender.
Susan fixed my cutting board, and Syd fixed my circular saw. I ended up staying for two hours chatting to them both about life and repairs. It turned out Susan and I had even worked together as swim teachers about 8 years earlier! We didn’t recognise each other at first because we’d only ever met before while dripping wet. (If you’ve worked as a swim teacher you’ll understand the pain of trying to recognise work friends while dry.)
Syd took apart the circular saw and pointed out the part that had overheated and broken. We didn’t have that very obscure tiny part on hand and the repair cafe, so he agreed to take the saw home, go to the store and get the part, solder it back together and bring it back the next month for me to pick up. All for just the cost of the part.
About a week later I got a call from Syd to say that the electrical store did not stock the part, but he’d found it on ebay and thought it was worth the risk of doing an online order. I coached him through the online purchase on the phone, and despite his doubt, it did get delivered to his house and the next month he was there triumphantly revving my circular saw.
Perhaps this is not a life-changing story. But it has changed the way Tim and I respond when something breaks throughout the month. Instead of chucking things in the bin, we put them in a box to take to the repair cafe. There’s currently a dead HDMI cord and a glove with a hole in it waiting for the next repair cafè day. I wouldn’t have thought twice about putting them in the bin a few months ago.
Maybe you’re like me and feel the calling to try keep some your broken stuff out of landfill. Or perhaps you’re also like me and feel very motivated to not have to fork out the cash needed to replace things all the time. If a repair cafe also seems like it could solve some of those problems for you, then the great news is that you’ll likely find one nearby! There’s a global map you can search here, or you can do what I did and just put “repair cafe [suburb]” into google and see what pops up.
Happy repairing!
Thanks for reading Practical Politics. My blog about small scale political action for ordinary people.
As always, this is not a blog about how you should live your life, but how you could live your life.
So please, take what’s helpful and leave what isn’t.
Tas x
repair cafes rock!