The City of Whittlesea’s first repair cafe is opening its doors and encouraging residents to fix their broken household items rather than binning them.
The new Mernda repair cafe will have skilled volunteers from the community performing the repairs.
Mernda Community House Coordinator Paras Christou hopes the initiative will get people to consider fixing items before deciding to throw them out.
“For many people these days, when something no longer works or is broken, their first thought is to bin it,” Paras Christou said.
“But what we are trying to do with this repair café is show our community that there is an alternative, and many items that would otherwise be destined for waste can in fact be repaired and reused.”
“We will have a range of repairers at each session that can fix items including bikes, small electrical items, clothing and jewellery.”
City of Whittlesea Administrator Peita Duncan said they were all for the community’s push towards being less wasteful.
“We are excited to have a local repair café right here in Mernda, helping residents rethink their waste and save money in the process by fixing items that they may otherwise have chosen to bin and replace,” Ms Duncan said.
“As part of our Rethinking Waste Plan 2021-2030, we’re working with our community to reduce and avoid sending waste to landfill through a range of initiatives, and this repair café is a great way to tackle the current ‘throw-away’ culture.”
The cafe is located at Mernda Community House and will be run monthly, with the first session held on Saturday April 9, from 10am-2pm.
Details: merndach.org.au/repaircafe.
