The City of Whittlesea’s first repair café is opening its doors and encouraging residents to fix their broken household items rather than ditch them.
The new Mernda Repair Café is being run by Mernda Community House, Whittlesea Community Connections and the City of Whittlesea and will be staffed by skilled volunteers from the community.
Mernda Community House Coordinator Paras Christou hopes the Café will get people in the community thinking about fixing items rather than simply throwing them out.
“For many people these days, when something no longer works or is broken, their first thought is to bin it,” said Paras.
“But what we are trying to do with this repair café is show our community that there is an alternative, and many items that would otherwise be destined for waste can in fact be repaired and reused.”
“We will have a range of repairers at each session that can fix items including bikes, small electrical items, clothing and jewellery.”
City of Whittlesea Administrator Peita Duncan said the City of Whittlesea was proud to be supporting community initiatives that tackle waste.
“We are excited to have a local repair café right here in Mernda, helping residents rethink their waste and save money in the process by fixing items that they may otherwise have chosen to bin and replace,” Ms Duncan said.
“As part of our Rethinking Waste Plan 2021-2030, we’re working with our community to reduce and avoid sending waste to landfill through a range of initiatives, and this repair café is a great way to tackle the current ‘throw-away’ culture.”
The repair café is located at Mernda Community House, 2 Heals Road, Mernda and will be run monthly, with the first session held on Saturday 9 April, from 10am-2pm.
