Fix, don’t toss: Repair cafes teach community to repair, re-use, refurbish

The Sunshine Repair Cafe is changing consumer culture one conversation at a time, and building skills that empower everyone to contribute to the circular economy.

The volunteer-led repair cafe in Brimbank supports the local community to gain skills in repair, re-use and re-purposing. It’s been running since March 2023 on the fourth Sunday of the month between February and November.

Housed in an old caretaker’s cottage and managed by the Kororoit Creek Neighbourhood House, the cafe volunteers make repairs free of charge. The team has a Portable Appliance Tester (PAT) and tagging equipment for electrical items, like lamps. And the cafe provides repairers with training to offer the community this test and tag service.

The repair cafe also offers a range of workshops teaching sustainable skills such as bike repair, toy repair, upcycling twine, invisible textile mending, and Sashiko – a Japanese method of visible textile repair. They have also delivered 21 workshops supporting people to learn skills in reducing food waste, textile and clothing waste, as well as bike and tool maintenance.

Repair coordinator Michael Mink says, 'The Sunshine Repair Cafe is loosely run on an appointment system. It’s a small space, so appointments help us plan which volunteers we need. We rely on our volunteer repairers, so we are focused on keeping them engaged. We run on the fourth Sunday of every month because that’s when we have time and access to the Neighbourhood House space. And we would also like to run a toy repair cafe at Brimbank library.'

The repair cafe is building its community. But it takes time to build trust and create an event that truly attracts people. It’s growing audience engagement and encouraging participation through word of mouth.

The repair cafe uses social media for its advertising and prioritises platforms that its key audiences are more likely to use. The cafe is also looking at different ways to expand its audience.

Michael says, 'Repair cafes generally have an older audience, so we promote via Facebook and Instagram, not Tik Tok. We would also like to work with libraries. They engage well with marginalised communities and we might even set up some repairing outreach.'

Sunshine Repair Cafe knows that its waste diversion data is only half the story in helping people to realise the impact of fixing their older items rather than buying new, considering people’s often limited resources.

Michael says, 'A repair cafe should encourage good consumer behaviour and help to build habits where people store items that might need repair. We want to encourage a ‘learning to fix’ approach, where people come to our repair shop and fix their own items using borrowed tools.'f

Driving circular economy at a local scale

Sustainability Victoria provides local communities across the state with the tools and knowledge they need to participate in the shift to a circular and more sustainable way of living.

Over the past decade, Sustainability Victoria has supported 137 community groups to deliver sustainability impacts in their local communities including tool libraries, repair cafes, composting hubs and food sharing initiatives. This project was funded through one such initiative, the Circular Economy Communties Fund.

Read our community circular economy initiative guides.