Waste Not, Repair Lots

Why just go to a cafe for coffee?

This is going to be a short one today.

SPEC is an non-profit organization part of the Vancouver city government. The Society Promoting Environmental Conservation was founded in the city in 1969 and is totally volunteer driven.

One thing they do, and today’s One Good Thing, is put on Repair Cafes. Repair cafes started in Amsterdam-West in 2009 and are/were the idea of journalist Martine Postma. Postma was concerned about the growing amount of waste generated by modern culture and spawned a civic idea: free community events to match up people with broken things with people (volunteers) who would try to fix them.

Since this inception they have been slowly spreading world-wide, and have reached North America and Vancouver. Things are fixed and having their “lives” extended, people are learning skills and the inner fabric of communities are strengthened.

See more in this CBC video: