Winterbourne and Frome Valley Environmental Group runs a monthly Share and Repair Café in association with All Saints Church in Winterbourne Down.
The underlying values for this café and workshop are to maintain or swap items which are broken or no longer needed - just like the BBC's Repair Shop! We aim to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill, reuse goods by finding new homes for them, and repair our possessions to give them a new lease of life.
We are part of a network of Repair Cafes across Bristol, and share skills more widely across the community. We have lots of volunteers who have skills at repairing – we’ve had electricians, bike repairers, sewing skills, jewellery repairers and many more! We don’t get the same people each time but there is normally a good cross-section of people available.
We are just returning to offering sit down tea and coffee following COVID19 restrictions, but the ‘share’ element of swapping goods has been reduced at present. We are very pleased to get back to providing a regular meeting place and community hub to help reduce isolation and loneliness in the community.
How does this help the environment?
The idea of keeping an item, for example, a kettle – for your whole lifetime, maintaining it and repairing it and just being able to keep on using it – this is something which our parents (or grandparents depending on your age) would have taken for granted. Now, a lot of things are seen as short term investments, with the associated plastic, metal and electrical elements being disposed of each time adding to the pile of rubbish we generate each year from items we throw away. Electronic items often contain heavy metals and other toxic chemicals, which can leach out into the ground and contaminate the water supply – or pollute the air if the waste is incinerated. In addition, you also won’t need to go out and buy a new kettle. That means you save all the raw materials and energy that would be required to produce that, as well as all the carbon dioxide that would be emitted in the process. This makes repairing your old items a good way to reduce your carbon footprint. It’s a win, win scenario, and as an added bonus, it also saves you money!
With the ‘share’ aspect of the café, passing on items you no longer need to people who can use them, such as baby items or toys your child has grown out of, a bike you no longer use, clothes which no longer fit – all of these items can have a new lease of life with a new owner. As with the repair aspect this saves on landfill and then there is also the saving from the person who adopts the item not having to buy a new one saving on raw materials, energy and transportation overheads and their associated carbon cost.
How can I get involved?
Our Share and Repair Cafés take place on the third Saturday of each month (1030-12) at All Saints Hall in Winterbourne Down. We offer all of this for free, but we do ask for a donation for any of the repairs or food etc. We welcome all volunteers - either with repairing or assisting with setup or making cakes! Please get in touch on our email winterbourneenvironmenta[email protected]