Repair is essential! Here is how we celebrated International Repair Day

“Repair is Essential” – this is the theme we chose for this year’s International Repair Day. In London, an online team of volunteers mapped 45+ repair businesses in London to be considered for inclusion. Small groups met repair businesses in Crystal Palace, Shepherd’s Bush and Tooting.

Restart appearing on camera for The One Show

Challenging throw-away products on The One Show

We appear on The One Show this evening, calling out in-built obsolescence and short product lifetimes and fixing with our community in Brixton. If you feel moved to get involved anywhere in the UK, we’re here for you.

Backing to scale our activities closer to home

We’re happy to announce that we’ve been granted two years funding from Nesta and the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to actively promote Restart Parties and spread community repair across England.

KDS Appliances

Portraits of repair businesses in East London

We’ve researched the changing landscape of the commercial repair sector in East London: some smaller businesses are finding it tough to compete with superstores and large manufacturers, and the next generation of younger repairers face an uncertain career path.

Picture of lamp

Repair as PR stunt: retailers, give us more than clever campaigns

For us to believe that retailers are serious about repair and reuse, we need to see them fully integrated into their whole business models. Instead of PR, we need evidence of design for longevity, and greater guarantees on products.