If it’s broke, fix it!

The Restart Project believes everyone should be able to fix their things. Our dream is to see a community repair initiative in every town across the UK allowing for free repairs. We also want professional repairs to be more affordable; through tax reductions and repair vouchers, and for repair to be prioritised over recycling.

The UK, and The Restart Project, were early adopters of community repair. However the UK is falling behind peer countries in Europe and the USA in terms of legislative support for repair. People in the UK are missing out on better options to fix their things, save money and reduce their climate impact. 

Practical Climate Action

The products we use every day are significant drivers of the climate crisis. Extracting the resources required to manufacture them contributes to over 55% of all greenhouse gas emissions and 90% of all biodiversity loss. Yet despite their hidden impacts, products are discarded too quickly, creating mountains of waste; the UK is the world’s second biggest producer, per person, of electronic waste - the fastest growing waste stream globally.

Our project will support communities across the UK to take action to reduce waste and tackle climate change by repairing products through local initiatives. Repair cafés enable people to fix broken items for free with help from skilled volunteers. This keeps products in use for longer and provides alternatives to buying new, helping communities reduce waste and emissions. They also support community cohesion, encourage people to repair more, and help to win over politicians. These initiatives also have a ripple effect which can create pathways to greater awareness of climate issues.

Our project goals:

1. Develop more opportunities for people from all communities across the UK to reduce waste and climate emissions through an increase in repair activities including volunteer community repair events. Since early 2023 we have supported the network to grow by ⅓, we plan to see that increase again by the end of 2025 with 50 new repair cafes in the UK being added to our network

2. Strengthen the fixing movement by supporting new and existing community repair initiatives to share best practice and foster strong relationships and peer support across the UK, building resilience, stability and long-term legacy. 

3. Greater promotion of repair as a viable alternative to buying new and enhancing our campaigning for better repair options for all. We will support and encourage repair cafes to win over MPs, so that the system supports a thriving repair economy

How will we measure project success?

• Monitor the increase in repair groups, events and repair attempts logged on our online data tool restarters.net.
• New tool-kit available online early next year to support current and future community repair groups to thrive and share best practice
• Bringing the voice of repair cafes to our new government. We will host a community repair event in Parliament in 2025 attended by local community groups and policy makers.

Why are we asking the community for support?

Existing community repair groups have seen sharp increases in membership over recent years demonstrating a clear need for this work, and we are being contacted regularly by people wanting to set up new groups. The demand for our support to local community groups is growing and changing, and we need to ensure we are offering the support that the movement needs.

Whilst the majority of our funding comes from grants, there are elements of the work we do to support the repair community which are currently unfunded. 

We understand not everyone is in a position to support financially, and instead people give their time as volunteers for which we, and the community, are forever grateful.

We only tend to directly ask the community for fundraising support when we are able to secure ‘match funding’ which means your support is doubled, so £5 becomes £10!

To everyone who supports with their time and those who support financially, we thank you all.

The Restart Project Team

You may have noticed our crowdfunder doesn’t have the traditional rewards. This is because our goal is to reduce things people have, rather than adding to them. We would love donors to become part of our community instead:

• Find a repair option near you
• Read about our Repair & Reuse Declaration
• Sign up to our newsletter here