It was a busy Saturday morning at Māngere Bridge Library recently when local group Friends of the Farm (FOF) ran another Repair Café. Skilled volunteers offer their services free at these events.
Reading lights were the most popular item brought in for repair by local electrician Bernie Corston from Chief Electrical. He also repaired fans, a cake mixer and a drill, while skilled seamstresses Cheryl, Loryn and Kathrina mended jackets, jeans and jumpers for locals. Mr Fix It woodworker Ian had a variety of items presented for repair, including a clock, and a broken shovel. Outside, bike mechanic Luke Haitoua from Duke Cycles repaired bike tyres, gears, and brakes and even fixed a pushchair tyre. IT and cell phone experts Matthew and John were on hand to help with tech issues.
Our book repairer was away so books needing repair were collected for repair at a later date.
Altogether 99 items were presented for repair and 65 were repaired. Final figures may be slightly
higher when we get Ian’s stats. Approximately 112kg was kept out of landfill by being repaired.
While the skilled repairers were busy fixing things, the Friends of the Farm members were talking to locals about the rollout of the Auckland Council Food Scraps collection service, which will be starting in Māngere Bridge in October 2023. FOF are championing this initiative as it fits with their kaupapa to reduce waste and minimise items going to landfill. On display were the two bins each household would receive, and the inside food caddy bin was filled with a typical week’s food scraps to demonstrate how easy and useful the system would be. It was heartening to hear how many people had worm farms and compost bins, collected soft plastics for recycling into fence posts, and were already minimising the amount sent to landfill. 93 conversations about food scraps were held over the course of the Repair Café.
The next Repair Café will be held at the Library on Saturday 14 October 2023. Save the date! Bring
along broken appliances, toys and bikes plus clothing that needs mending.
Friends of the Farm has partnered with Auckland Council for over ten years to deliver education and waste reduction services.