The Restart Project is turning Five!

This month we are turning 5. Sadly, that’s how long an average computer is used before it’s replaced — something we’d like to change. For us, the five year mark is just the beginning.

To celebrate this milestone, we are aiming to raise £1 for every kilogram of unnecessary electronic waste prevented (so far) in our five year run – that’s £4314.

Our “beta” Restart party had two attendees: Janet and Ugo, taking apart Janet’s upgradable Macbook over a bottle of wine.

Since our first public Restart Party at a north London pub, in June 2012, we’ve helped Restart Project grow into the vibrant international community that it is today. From Montreal to Leicester to Milan, we’ve diverted over four tons of electronics from waste. Each year we welcome incredible new hosts and volunteers, and see more and more gadgets saved from turning into landfill.

We owe it all to our supporters and our extended community.

But there’s plenty more work to be done. Over the past few months, we’ve seen the landscape of international environmental policy change radically. It’s clear that we cannot wait around for policymakers to slowly open their eyes to the growing problem of waste and resource depletion – although we can help open their eyes. Right now, it is more important than ever that we fight to create the sort of futures that we want to see.

We’ve got big plans ahead of us.

• Our work in education is gathering steam. We want to bring repair into more and more schools, and provide both teachers and students with the training and equipment they need. We want to pursue new and ambitious repair stories with our podcast and radio show, and get the Restart message out to as many people as possible
• We want our community repair events to stay free for everyone, and we can help new hosts do the same.
• Our Fixometer app has enabled us to quantify how every repair adds up to real waste prevention. But our data shows we can only fix half of what we see. As we generate and combine more and more data on repair, we’ll use this to give us a stronger voice and reinforce our advocacy work with manufacturers and policy makers.

We believe that this combination of community-led action and advocacy can have a real impact on behaviour, policies, and economic landscapes. But we cannot do it without you: head over to our donation page to show your support.

If you can’t donate this time, there are still ways you can help. You can subscribe to our free podcast and radio show on iTunes and give us a rating. You can tell your friends and family to sign up to the Restart Code, or share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And you can keep fixing!