Fixing Stuff and Strengthening Communities

Conserving resources through reuse and repair -- including natural, human, financial, and historical, is a timeless approach at the top of EPA’s sustainable materials management hierarchy. Our grandparents and generations before them fixed things that were broken to avoid wasting materials, money, time. The need for repair infrastructure has been underscored by the supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic.

There’s a revival of the repair tradition blossoming in locations across the globe as communities come together to repair what is broken in a variety of ways from repair cafes and clinics to tool libraries. The growing repair movement centers around intergenerational and culturally vibrant gatherings where people can bring beloved but broken items to be fixed or repurposed with an expert who may also be a neighbor. These organizations and events do more than help repair objects, they help repair our world by bringing together the collective community spirit of sharing, stewardship and waste reduction.