Tag Archives: electronics

Support us through Ebay-Patagonia auction

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We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been chosen to receive proceeds from the online auction connected to the launch of the Ebay and Patagonia Common Threads partnership in the UK.

Common threads

Common Threads is more than just an online storefront/collaboration between Ebay and Patagonia. It is an initiative that aims to boldly change the way we consume.

Participants do not just shop for second hand Patagonia clothes, they sign a pledge to really live the 4 Rs (Reduce, Repair, Reuse and Recycle). Participants pledge to “wrest the full life out of every Patagonia product by buying used when I can, and selling what I no longer wear to keep it in circulation”.

Common Threads has successfully provided a marketplace for Patagonia clothes for reuse, via individual sellers, in the US since 2011 and now it is launching now in the UK.

For the launch, Ebay and Patagonia are sponsoring an auction, with some celebrity items – including a jacket worn by adventurer Ben Fogle – and we’re really excited to have been chosen as the only recipient of funds raised. Continue reading →

A day at the Market

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We had a fun, blustery day at Brixton Market – our first – on Easter Saturday. We have been keen to pop-up in a market, to promote repair “elsewhere”. Our idea is not to take business away from local repairers, but instead to encourage people to repair and reuse in a place where they are receptive to new ideas. So the Give and Take Day organised by Brixton Market was the perfect opportunity. Continue reading →

Repairing with young product designers

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We had an excellent day yesterday at Central Saint Martins, one of the University of the Arts London campuses, most associated with product design. We started the day with a lecture to second year students about what we have learned working with hundreds of frustrated electronics owners over the past nine months.

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Our top 4 messages to future product designers… Continue reading →

Has Tech Ever Broken Your Heart?

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UPDATE: see the results of our online “therapy” at the end of this post!

Have you ever brought home a new gadget which you had high expectations for, and it then broke your heart? Or did your favourite, 10 year old pair of headphones finally die on you, leaving you bereft? Or perhaps you tried in vain to keep your laptop alive and then watch it flatline before your eyes?

For Valentine’s Day, we would like to hear more about your electronics relationships and heartbreaks. Tell us a story, or post a photo of the electronic gadget that broke your heart. If you’re on Twitter, use the hashtag #ITbrokemyheart

#ITbrokeMYheart

Continue reading →

Celebrating our half-birthday – December parties!

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Wow, time flies, we look at the calendar and we will have had over a dozen Restart Parties in our six short months of life. We’ve learned tons and met so many great people.

And we’ve had so many “hallelujah” moments – like this one, in our very first Restart Party:

hallelujah merry xmas

We have three events this month, so please get involved.

Let’s get in the repair spirit on the eve of our society’s mid-winter consumer binge!

Continue reading →

The Power of We, consumers of e-stuff

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We have started to notice what we call an increasing ‘disquiet’ with the way we consume technology. The iPhone is the most common trigger for this feeling, but it is symbolic of greater unease with short lifecycle of e-stuff, sandwiched by concerns about production, supply chains and then disposal.

You know it’s serious when one of the US’ biggest sketch comedy TV shows goes after the frivolity of tech journalism and reminds us of the human costs of our gadgets.

We are tired of feeling powerless – in some sleepwalking state of mindless consumption. Of course we want innovation, we want progress, but at a pace that makes sense to us as humans.

We decide, not some marketing and manufacturing behemoth. Continue reading →

What we are throwing away

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Our e-stuff is a goldmine. Recently the United Nations University and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) estimated that electronic waste now contains precious metal “deposits” 40 to 50 times richer than ores mined from the ground. Annually $16 billion in gold is built into our electronics and at least 85% is not recovered – lost forever.

WRAP estimates that in the UK, between now and 2020, 3 million tonnes of IT equipment, consumer electronics and display screens will be disposed.

This is roughly the weight of 30,000 Routemaster buses EACH YEAR.

According to WRAP, at least 25% of this waste could be reused.

But statistics are often abstractions. What actually happens on the ground? What does this look like? We visited Camden’s waste disposal and recycling site at Regis Road earlier this month.

Continue reading →

A repair ecosystem

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We’re currently doing some research to test some of ideas about fostering economies of repair, and we thought why not share some of what we found.

In this south London neighbourhood, like many, there are a number of mobile unlocking/repair/accessory places. Laptop repair is advertised in a couple of unexpected market stalls, storefronts or cyber cafés.

We talked to a handful of these, and all said they get business from passers-by and from word of mouth referrals – they said their clientele was diverse, all ages, all races, and interest in technology. We noticed that the more visible places had more customers and a diverse group at that.

Continue reading →