Repair Cafe for Eynsford

The Green Team are organising a pop-up repair cafe in Eynsford to help the community reduce waste.

This is an opportunity for members of the community to get their items fixed rather than throwing them away and replacing them with new goods. Repairing and mending old and damaged items is becoming more popular. TV's The Repair Shop has raised interest, although we cannot offer repairs quite to that standard.

The Green Team and other volunteers will be offering simple repairs to clothes, toys and bikes. Residents will be able to see and maybe help with the repair, so that next time they will be able to do it themselves. We will not be offering electrical repairs at this point. If we can't help you, we might be able to point you in the direction of someone who can. Everyone is welcome. 

Visible repairs have also gained popularity. The Japanese art of Kintsugi sees pottery being glued back together, but then the cracks are painted with gold. Rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive, the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Once completed, beautiful seams of gold glint in the conspicuous cracks of ceramic wares, giving a one-of-a-kind appearance to each “repaired” piece. Visible mending of clothing is also becoming more popular, with decorative stitches such as sashiko or boro stitching, or embroidering designs around holes to make them into a new feature.

As people start to value the resources that have gone into making their clothes and other belongings, hopefully they will aim to use them for as long as possible, or pass them onto someone else to use.