Repair or Replace? Why It Matters, and How to Do Better

My parents and grandparents had all sorts of knowledge I don't have, though none of them graduated from university.  None of my four grandparents had the opportunity to go to high school, and my dad had a total of three years of schooling before he began tutoring math at a private school in his town.  He and my mom each completed about two years of college before they had to quit and go to work. 

My grandfather drove heavy equipment and taught himself surveying so he could level farmland and lay irrigation systems.  He also hunted and fished, could repair cars, guns, roofs – just about anything, really.  My grandmother gardened, raised goats and rabbits and chickens, cooked and baked – and did all of it for a long time without electricity or natural gas.  My mom was a seamstress and a crafting genius.  She also cooked, baked, painted with watercolors and acrylics, and organized the Sunday school at our church.  My dad was a natural-born teacher and business manager who taught himself lots of handyman skills.

Compared to them, I have a lot of academic knowledge and a paltry range of practical skills.

It's not unusual.

This seems par for the course, nowadays.  We may wish we knew more skills that would make us self-sufficient, but many of us don't.  Simple living advocate Satish Kumar says the desire is natural.

It's intrinsic to human nature.  Our hands are made to make.  But our society and the way we educate our children dismisses manual labor – it is only for those who have failed, who are not intellectually up to doing anything else.  And because of this attitude, instead of being a society of makers we are a society of consumers, dependent on buying everything we need and easily swayed into buying so much we don't.

We not only buy things instead of making them, we don't maintain them either.  Do you know how to fix your slow cooker, hair dryer, or vacuum cleaner?  I certainly don't, and I don't think I'd try.  There's still someone in my town who could repair my vacuum, but he's older than I am and might not be in business much longer.  There's still a shoe repair shop in the next town over.  But I'm ashamed to say that if my paper shredder or microwave died I'd just buy new ones.

I hate that.

Lots of companies even manufacture items that will be hard or impossible to repair.  They use oddly-shaped screws that take special tools to remove.  Or they create solid-state components that can't be opened at all.  Then they offer a 20% discount if you buy a new one, so that's what we all do.

Lots of people don't even take care of their clothes if they get a stain or a hem comes loose.

It seems obvious that we could greatly reduce waste if we made existing products last longer by repairing them instead of throwing them away.  It should be simple, but it isn't.

"People don't repair things any more because they don't know how to do it," says Martine Postma, the Netherlands native who came up with the concept of Repair Cafés in 2009.

They don't have the skills or the tools, they don't have the time, and in many cases it is cheaper and easier to get something new than to get an old item repaired....  I wanted the idea of repair to be as normal as getting a new product, but I knew it would only work if it was as cheap and easy to get something fixed, and also more fun.

Her foundation has the following goals:

• to bring back repairing into local society in a modern way
• to maintain repair skills and spread this knowledge
• to promote community cohesion by connecting people from different backgrounds in an inspiring, low-key manner

We can do this.

Let's get tired of manufacturers selling us what are basically disposable items, pushing us to buy new instead of fixing what we already have.  We deserve the right to repair our products, and we're capable of more than consumption!

Maybe there's a Repair Café near you.  There are almost 3,200 around the world, and one happens to be in Sacramento, a city I visit a couple of times each month.  But even if you don't have access, check their website for over 60,000 repair guides for an amazing array of items, from iPhones to Instant Pots, from luggage to laptops, from coffee makers and cat trees to Cricut roller bars.

Meanwhile, what can you already do for yourself?  Can you:

• replace a button
• repair and spot clean a well-loved plush toy
• patch drywall
• repair a window screen
• unclog a drain
• smooth a sticky drawer
• lubricate a sticky lock
• paint a wall
• deodorize carpeting
• resew a seam or a hem
• re-caulk a bathtub
• re-cover the seat of a dining chair
• unclog a shower head or faucet
• replace an electrical plug or outlet
• clean and condition a leather purse
• refinish wood furniture
• sharpen a knife
• patch a bicycle tire or fix a chain
• ... or something else useful?

Another way

There is one other way to reduce the number of things that end up in landfills.  This story told by Elmo Stoll was shared by Kate Humble in her book, A Year of Living Simply.*  I'll paraphrase for brevity:

A man from a big city moved to a house in the countryside, near a community of plain people (which is what they called themselves).  He was a little nervous about these people who travelled by horse and cart and chose to have no power lines connected to their buildings.

The day he moved in, one of his new neighbors showed up, offering to help unload.  He accepted happily, since the man looked strong.  "Probably from manual labor," thought the city man.

The neighbor was helpful, and carried many heavy electrical appliances.  At the end of the day, he said to the city man, "If any of these break down, let me know and I'll come right over."

"How kind!" said the city man.  "Do you repair things?"

"Yes," said the plain man, "but I have no idea how to fix these particular items.  However, I'd be happy to show you how to live without them."

Just something for all of us to think about.

* This blog is reader-supported.  If you buy through my links, I may earn a small commission.

Related article:  An Ode to Work