Neighborhood to global change – connecting the Haight-Nopa Repair Café to Earth Day

I am continually delighted (and pleasantly surprised) by the positive response to the Haight-Nopa Repair Café.  At least one of the reasons that originally spurred me to set it up­­ ….such as reducing resource use, encouraging a repair not a throwaway culture, building community, saving money, giving life to a loved object…. seems to resonate with people who hear about it. The joy and excitement that has been shared at the events, in our visitor’s book, through Instagram comments, via email has been so cool.  It makes it feel like the best and most impactful thing I have contributed to in a long time, in all my years as a sustainability consultant, working on, for example, climate action plans for cities such as Miami, Seattle and New York.

The Haight-Nopa Repair Café has prevented the purchase of yet more things from Amazon, saved people money and diverted waste from landfill through repairing over 335lbs worth of stuff (to date). We have shown people repair is possible, taught people some skills and just by existing encouraged people to repair their own things. We have certainly built community, we have introduced neighbors to each other, made friends, gained apprentices and shared recipes.

It seems community connection and feeling useful locally is gaining importance for many of us, not least because things on a global scale (particularly for climate, but basically everything) feel out of control.  What you buy and what you throw away you can control, and if you can mend your own things (or your neighbors things), buy second hand and buy local where possible, you are contributing to your local community and economy. I would like to think that those actions can lead to bigger change, not least through developing a culture of repair (and demand for repairable products), and demonstrating to local politicians what matters to their constituents.   

The actions of the Haight-Nopa Repair Café – all our volunteers and patrons – are also contributing to the zero-waste component of San Francisco’s Climate Action Plan. This is something else I want to celebrate today as we recently were awarded a zero-waste grant from the San Francisco Environment Department to support our efforts.

Local action is often encouraged and celebrated on Earth Day (22^nd April) each year, and it is a somewhat but very happy coincidence that our fourth Repair Café is to be held close to Earth Day and during SF Climate Week. While many of us try to live Earth Day every day, it is a useful reminder to buckle down and try to do something extra.  Maybe for you, one extra thing can be bringing along that broken mixer to the Repair Café on 19^th April and seeing if we can repair it for you.