New community Fixing Factory opens on Queen’s Crescent, Camden, to reinvigorate the high street and tackle e-waste
A new community Fixing Factory has today (Thursday 27 October) opened on Queen’s Crescent in Camden aiming to reinvigorate the high street and tackle e-waste.
The Fixing Factory will allow local people to resist throwing away household appliances and needlessly buying new goods which are often expensive and environmentally damaging. It will also provide learning opportunities for local residents so they can repair appliances themselves, hoping to build sustainable thinking and practices into everyday routines.
The Fixing Factory will be reaching out to local repair businesses in order to foster a repair ecosystem - meaning people can access high-quality fixers and those repair businesses can flourish from the accumulating interest in getting their appliances fixed.
Earlier this year, the inaugural Fixing Factory opened in Brent and repairs broken laptops, desktops and tablets of local residents and then gives them to those in the community that need them most, in an effort to address the “digital divide” - the unequal access to digital technology.
Today’s Fixing Factory was officially opened after Camden Mayor, Nasim Ali, cut the ribbon. There were also a number of other local politicians as well as representatives from a number of local stakeholders and community groups. Attendees celebrated the grand opening of the Queen’s Crescent Fixing Factory, and took part in some hands-on fixing.
Repairing, reusing and recycling is going to be a vital tool in addressing climate change as electronics generate roughly 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions. Centres dedicated to repair practices, like the Fixing Factory in Queen’s Crescent, create up to ten times the jobs compared to those disposal sites. 80% of all broken electricals could actually be repaired at community events, with the help of volunteers.
Fixing Factories is a co-production between climate charity Possible and the Restart Project, and training partners Mer-IT. Fixing Factories is funded by the National Lottery Climate Action Fund and CAST. The West London Waste Authority are also partners on the Fixing Factory in Brent. Camden Council supported the Queen’s Crescent Fixing Factory in finding its location.
Dermot Jones, Fixing Factories Camden project manager for climate charity Possible, said:
“We’re thrilled to have launched the Fixing Factory on Queen’s Crescent. The level of community interest we’ve seen already has been huge. E-waste is a significant problem in addressing climate change and our culture of overconsumption. With this project, not only can we start reducing e-waste on a local level, we can start building a culture of making your stuff last longer, where people see the opportunities of keeping appliances going rather than trading them in for a newer model.”
Adam Harrison, Cabinet member for a Sustainable Camden, said:
“We’re delighted to welcome the Fixing Factory to Camden. We want to challenge the “take-make-dispose” model of the linear economy in Camden and replace it with an alternative which values repair and reuse, while cutting consumption emissions, reducing waste and helping residents during the cost of living crisis.”
The Mayor of Camden, Councillor Nasim Ali said:
“The Fixing Factory will be a great opportunity for our local community to learn more about climate change while also providing a much-needed service. I was glad to be able to welcome them to Queen’s Crescent at today’s opening ceremony.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
Images are available HERE.
For media enquiries and further information please contact press@wearepossible.org or 07806431577.
Representatives from Possible and The Restart Project are available for comment in person at the launch, and ahead of the event Please contact press@wearepossible.org for more information.
Possible is a UK-based charity that brings people together to take positive, practical action on climate change. Combining individual and local actions with larger systemic change, we connect people with each other, and communities with ways to address the climate crisis. wearepossible.org.
The Restart Project helps people learn how to repair their broken electronics, and rethink how they consume them in the first place. We run regular Restart Parties for hands-on repair, campaign for a Right to Repair so that all products are made to be repaired and reused and have developed a London repair directory for reliable repair shops. TheRestartProject.org.