Last year, we had the chance to do something we’ve dreamed about for a while and ran the first trial of vouchers for electrical repair in the UK. The trial was delivered by us and ReLondon, with funding from North London Waste Authority and support from Fixfirst and local councils. Over a period of 12 months, we worked with repair businesses in the seven boroughs of North London to make repair more accessible for local residents and boost the local repair economy. Now, we’re ready — and excited — to share our findings from the trial. Our trial is not the first of its kind around the world, so
With two new locations just launched in London, we catch up with Rhio and Sarah to see how Fixing Factories are thriving on our high streets.
We’re currently running a survey of our listeners. Please take a few minutes to fill it in so that we can make the content that you want to hear! Off the back of a very wet and dreary start to the year in the UK, we’re bringing memories of sunnier times to all of you. For this episode, we spoke to Clare and Frank about the repair pop-ups that they — with the help of many volunteers — ran at two festivals over the last couple of summers. Clare Seek is the founder of Share Portsmouth (originally Repair Cafe Portsmouth) and has been running repair events since its inception in 2018. Frank Schoofs
As the year draws to a close, we’re grappling with what a sustainable future really looks like against a backdrop of a more and more technology-based world. We’re told that the tools that we now have at our fingertips are making our lives easier, more streamlined but this convenience comes at a cost. There are organisations thinking differently though, like the Paris-based “Citizen Science Laboratory”, Atelier 21. On this episode, we speak to founder, Cédric Carles about the low-tech, frugal, and more environmentally-friendly innovations of old that they are raising from the buried past. Cédri
International Repair Day 2025 is almost here! And a lot of our focus this year has been on software obsolescence. It’s been top of mind due to the unprecedented impact that the end of Windows 10 will have on around half of all Windows users. In early October, with the end of 10 on the horizon, we sat down with Nathan Proctor from US PIRG, Monique Szpak, seasoned laptop tinkerer and volunteer with Community TechAid and Repair Cafe Lambeth, and our own Tech Lead, Neil Mather to get the lowdown on what the resistance has been to this huge obsolescence event that is now upon us. The Windows 10 iss
After a bit of a hiatus, our podcast is back and we were honoured to be joined by Mark Miodownik for a chat about researching and communicating around repair. Mark is not only an author, engineer, Professor of Materials and Society at UCL, and a director of the Institute of Making but also the newly appointed Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement with Science — meaning that he’s really good at turning people who think they are apathetic about the material things (less in the Madonna sense and more like Aluminium honeycombs and Nano Fibres, to name a couple) in our world, into enthusias
Spring has sprung in London and so have new repair initiatives! We sat down with Shelini and Fiona to have a chat about two exciting projects that have just kicked off in the capital. Another high street gets treated to a Fixing Factory First, Shelini told us about the launch of the brand new Hackney Fixing Factory that happened in April. As we waved goodbye to the historic Hackney Fixers group, a more permanent space has taken root right off the high street. Friends and project partners joined us to cut the ribbon and celebrate our third Fixing Factory. We spoke about some of the fresh ideas
We can’t believe that we’ve already reached episode 100 of The Restart Podcast! We launched this show a decade ago to explore the world of repair, connect with others in the space, and think about how our work fits into the wider world of sustainability and circularity, autonomy and ownership, and education and accessibility. And we’re so proud of what we’ve managed to produce and the conversations that we’ve had over the years. To mark the occasion, we wanted to speak to a few notable people that haven’t featured on the podcast yet. These are people who you might have thought would’ve been in
A transcript of this podcast is available Sitting nestled in the mountains of France sits a small building buzzing with activity. Backdropped by the snowy Alps, signs on the building read “where borders meet”, “welcome” and “repair station”, a perfect summary of the Low-tech & Refugees project run by EKO!. In this episode, we speak to Marjolaine Bert, founder of EKO! about how repair and ingenuity can give vulnerable people life saving solutions, learning from each other, and building empathy between communities. The Low-tech & Refugees project aims to help refugees, migrants and exiled people
Have you ever binned or recycled something that was still working, or could have been repaired? Our new report says that the answer is likely, yes. Did you want to do so? Our polling suggests, no! Last year, we conducted a small study on rates of reuse and repair at a waste and recycling centre in London and found that almost half of the small electricals that went to scrap, could have been either repaired or directly reused. We had our suspicions that this wasn’t a stand alone occurrence, so we set our sights on something bigger. In this episode, we talk to Restart’s own James Pickstone about
For our August episode, we spoke to professor and writer, Shannon Mattern about her writing on the history of repair and repair manuals. It’s a theme that she has almost unknowingly been pursuing in her work for many years, bringing it to areas of thought that we haven’t yet explored on the show. The repair manual brings into play lots of elements that fascinate Mattern including graphic design and instructional media but perhaps what stands out most is her belief that the genre isn’t always so straight forward in its pedagogical nature. In fact, in classes she often encourages students to use
We spoke to Restart’s own Pascale Hall and James Pickstone, and Dr Kersty Hobson from Cardiff University about the Student Repair Revolution project and their learnings and hopes for the future of student repair initiatives. Unique and familiar challenges We know that engaging young people in repair is no easy task which is partly why the Student Repair Revolution project was set up in the first place. So, we discuss the main challenges that were found when trying to set up initiatives in universities. Kersty stresses that it really is dependent on the unique situation of each institution. Cam
This month, we spoke to Libby Peake, Head of Resource Policy at Green Alliance about their work on waste and resources, and how we can get the UK government to act urgently to tackle these issues. Libby begins by giving us a rundown on government resources policy over the last decade and how it stacks up to the measures that have been put in place in European countries. As she says, ‘bits and bobs’ have been done including on resource and energy efficiency, but it’s not what we need to make a major difference. “The UN has been raising alarms about the amount of resources that are extracted fro
Do you know the most effective way to reduce our waste? If you’re a regular listener, then probably yes. But it may surprise you to find out just how many people believe that recycling is the answer to our climate crisis. This February, Keep Britain Tidy released a report on how to talk about avoiding waste more effectively with the general public. We spoke to Anna Scott about their main findings and how we can better explain the waste hierarchy. The social conundrums of buying less Before we dive into the research, we caught up about how the recent Buy Nothing New Month campaign went. For the
For our final episode of the season, Ugo and Fiona sat down for a chat about the year that was 2023. From launching the Repair and Reuse Declaration to the biggest Repair Day ever to some major wins for Right to Repair across the world. It’s been an amazing year and we couldn’t have done it without our community here in London and further afield. What has been the progress on Right to Repair? Gains in Europe Ugo talks us through the long list of upcoming legislation that is set to be up to bat next year. This includes new rules surrounding smartphones and tablets; consumer rights; and a repair
We’re going on a repair road trip this month as we talk to Simon Frémineur and Jinny Uppington about their respective mobile repair initiatives. Travelling repair cafes are a popular idea in our community, with quite a few iterations popping up across the UK and abroad. We speak to our guests about the benefits of a mobile unit, including being able to reach communities who cannot access repair as easily. The Repair Café Mobile takes Wallonia Simon talks us through the origins of the Repair Café Mobile and the excitement that has surrounded it ever since he first pitched it to Repair Together
On 30th September, over 100 fixers, organisers, researchers, and more from around the UK came together for Fixfest UK 2023! This year’s edition was held in Cardiff and co-organised with our friends at Repair Cafe Wales. We spent the day sharing our experiences and expertise on how to build the movement and bring repair to the fore both locally and nationally. It was an incredibly supportive atmosphere, including a session on how to take care of yourself as a repair facilitator. In this episode, we wanted to share a taste of the conversations going on on the day. We spoke to 8 Fixfest attendees
Pinball machines are whirring and circuitboards buzz as we talk to ‘super-fixers’ Rob Howard and Matt Marchant from the TV show Retro Electro Workshop, about the experience of making a show about retro repair and how to encourage more people to repair their things. Retro Electro Workshop features Rob, Matt, and Shamil (who you will remember from our episode about Armstrong Audio) as we watch them dig out broken treasures and repair them to their former glory. The ‘warm buzz’ of repair It’s hard not to want to dive into repairing your stuff when you hear Matt and Rob talk about it. From the sat
In the final episode of our summer season, we talked to author and journalist, Oliver Franklin-Wallis about his new book entitled, Wasteland: The Dirty Truth about What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters. Oliver spent four years researching waste of all kinds, the people that handle it, and its effect on our planet. Having just conducted our own research into e-waste at a recycling centre, we were excited to learn about a more expansive view of the issue. The reality of recycling Oliver has been reporting on and thinking about waste for many years, from writing about Project Swor
Have you ever binned or recycled something that was still working, or could have been repaired? The answer is likely, yes. Based on the results of our recent Waste Composition Analysis, conducted with West London Waste Authority (WLWA), it’s a habit that is even more common than we thought. This March, we spent a week looking at small electrical products brought to the Abbey Road Household Waste and Recycling Centre, and analysed what could have been reused and repaired. In this episode, we tell you more about the results of this study. Ugo also spoke to Emma Beal, Managing Director at WLWA, a
This month, we take a deep-dive into a local repair and reuse ecosystem. Brighton seemed like a great case study for this so we spoke to Victoria Jackson and Sam Jarman from Brighton Repair Café and Dr David Greenfield from Tech-Takeback, two of the amazing projects working together to reduce waste in the city. A decade of repair with Brighton Repair Café Brighton Repair Café is one of the longest-running repair cafés in the UK, holding their first event all the way back in 2013. Victoria and Sam were both studying sustainable design at the time and were interested in the journeys that we take
This month we talked to author and communicator, Katie Treggiden about her recent book entitled, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World. Katie has put decades of thought into helping creatives and makers become more sustainable but also forgive themselves when they can’t be. Back to her roots Having grown up surrounded by nature in Cornwall, Katie tells us about her surprising origin story. She spent over a decade working in advertising before pivoting towards her life-long love of writing. With this, she also folded in a new interest – purpose-driven craft and design. Since then, she h
This week we’ve been celebrating London Repair Week by highlighting the heroic repair businesses all over the city. Our directory of repair shops, LondonRepairs.org, was recently relaunched with a new dedicated website. Here you can find over 300 reliable businesses to fix your stuff. In this month’s podcast, we spoke to two of these repairers about their passion for fixing, the barriers to their work and what could revitalise the repair economy. Meet the businesses Junaid Syed is one half of the team of brothers that run Holborn-based Saras Fix. Having grown up repairing and fixing computers
This month, join us for an expert panel on community-led high street repair! We gathered together Katie Bellaris from Re:Make Newport, Elaine Brown from Edinburgh Remakery, Sue Briggs from The General Store Selkirk, and Lorna Montgomery from Share and Repair Bath to talk about their experiences setting up high street repair projects in their area. We’re hoping that by hearing about their different operating models, approaches, and tips and tricks it will inspire some of you to support repair and reuse on your local high street. The money question All of these ventures run with slightly differe
It’s been an ongoing question in our community of how to get young people involved in repair culture. In this month’s podcast, we were delighted to talk to students, Carl Mau and Beat Schneiderhan, and their teachers, Felix Lossin and Walter Kraus, who have a plan. Based at the Rudolf Steiner School in Munich, not only do they have a weekly repair cafe led by students but lessons on repairing are also integrated into their curriculum. And they have created a guidebook on how to start a student repair shop at any school. We spoke to them about this innovative idea and how it has been received b
