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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And joining me is my friend, Wendy Ring, the climate everything person, one of my favorite people, who's here to talk to us about the repair cafes that she and others are hosting here in Humboldt. Welcome to the Econews, Wendy.

WENDY RING:

Happy to be here.

WHEELER:

All right, so repair cafes, briefly, what are the repair cafes?

RING:

Repair cafes are events where volunteers who know how to fix things come and community members bring their broken stuff to get fixed for free.

WHEELER:

Oh, well, that's easy.

RING:

And it's an international movement that started with one repair cafe in Amsterdam in 2009, and now there are I think at last count 3,800 in 40 countries around the world

WHEELER:

And so who puts on these repair cafes? Is it an organization, a collection of like-minded individuals?

RING:

You know, it really varies. I mean, some of them have been sponsored even by, by organizations, some of them by public libraries. Some of them are just groups of people who got together. And that's, I mean, that's how I got into this. I always thought it would be a great idea, but it seemed like it might be something that would be kind of complicated to organize. And I was interviewing an architect in Chicago about, for something for the Cool Solutions podcast about, about a project that they have for retrofitting a certain type of housing in Chicago. But it turned out that she was the original founder of one of the first repair cafes in the US would call Community Glue. And so we ended up off on a tangent and having a second interview about repair cafes. And that was how I realized that they really aren't that hard to organize. And that's how ours started.

WHEELER:

And how many repair cafes have we hosted so far?

RING:

We are coming up on a year. We started in April of 2025. We do it monthly.

WHEELER:

So you, as I said in the intro, are a climate activist. I think I called you my climate person. What is the connection to climate change here? Why is repairing things a climate solution of sorts?

RING:

Well, an astonishing amount of our greenhouse gas emissions come from what's called embedded carbon, which is the carbon that is emitted in the process of making stuff and getting rid of it at the end. So transporting it around and getting rid of it at the end. And so it's like 70% of household emissions come from consumption of these items. And about 30% of that is not even counted when you look at things like our local greenhouse gas inventory, because it's emissions that were emitted both, say, in China or some other country and then imported into the US. And we are exponentially increasing consumers of goods that were created with carbon emissions outside of our country. So the longer that we can fix things and avoid buying new things, the bigger the greenhouse gas reductions we can have. And if you think about it, I mean, for some things like that have a lot of high embedded carbon, like computers and smartphones, you know, if you can make it last twice as long, you're cutting those emissions in half.

WHEELER:

So this reminds me of some conversations I've had with Maggie Gaynor of Zero Waste Humboldt and in conversation with her. We've talked about In the three R's of reduce reuse recycle We really need to focus on the first two that recycling not a lot of things Locally are actually recycled that we have a difficult recycling market. It's only becoming more difficult that much of what we have ends up in a landfill and There's this like kind of part of environmentalism, you know early environmentalism with the three R's that was about waste reduction trying not to have bigger landfills and Keep things keep a litter off the streets We're now getting back to this same place the same kind of old-school environmentalism focusing on reuse and But we're now approaching it from it from a different lens from a climate lens Which is which is interesting that we're arriving back now again at the same place

RING:

Well, wait a minute, because I think it's all been about climate, and I mean the whole recycling business was promoted by the fossil fuel industry as a way to permit them to keep making plastic. And so really, and it hasn't worked, and there's lots of documentation that they did that deliberately, and so I think that word is coming to our senses and putting the blame on the fossil fuel industry where it belongs, but also realizing that, okay, so many people, when you talk about climate change, they sort of respond with, well, I recycle. And that's really, that's not the point. That doesn't do, we wish it would do more, but what we really need to be doing is limiting plastic production and limiting, decreasing our throwaway consumption patterns, because that's where the emissions really are. So to me, I see it as kind of all of one piece.

WHEELER:

Yeah, right. And sorry, I didn't try to, I didn't mean to try to break it apart, but it-

RING:

I just wanted to put...

WHEELER:

He just wanted to get the dig in at the fossil fuel industry, yeah, yeah.

RING:

Yeah, we were, you know, we went out, that recycling tangent was really kind of like a, not a very constructive. It was made to get us off the point.

WHEELER:

And it certainly did. Yeah. So, so repair cafes are useful because they repair things that you would need in your own life. And so you don't have to go out and buy them. I it's also in part kind of a philosophical protest against the consumerism that is dominant, the fast fashion and whatever else do you, do you want to speak to the broader philosophy of repair cafes in that, in that lens?

RING:

Well, I, you know, I think everybody who comes there has their own reason, but there is, there's a lot. I mean, it's a community building activity. We don't, we don't ask anybody's politics. We don't talk about politics. There's a lot of people who just take great joy in using their skills to fix things and to help other people and help their neighbors. So I think it's, it's kind of getting back to, we have this broken thing in front of us and this person who needs it. What can we do about it? That brings in a lot more people than when you start talking theoretically about greenhouse gas emissions and all that. There is, I do want to say though, there is a calculator that the Repair Cafe International has where you can, you can put in at the end of a cafe, all the things that you fixed. And it gives you an equivalence in greenhouse gas emissions. And so I did that for our January cafe that we had, it was our first one in Eureka. And it was the equivalent of 18,000 miles of air travel.

WHEELER:

Hey, that's really fantastic. That's much larger than I was anticipating. Good.

RING:

Yeah, me too, me too. So it does really make a difference on that scale, but it's also, it's just kind of a really wonderful event to attend. It feels good. It's happy, people are happy. The volunteers really enjoy it. And the people who come in, come away smiling, even if we don't manage to fix their things. Although we have a very high repair rate. I think it was about 85% at that January cafe, 85% success rate.

WHEELER:

Who are the people who are making the repairs and how do you go about finding the kind of expertise to make a well-rounded repair cafe?

RING:

You know, it's a real mix. Everybody from from Cal Poly students to to retire. Retired electricians. It's a it's a real mix of all kinds of skills that people have. And what I did was I just and the hardest thing that we had was trying to find a place that we didn't have to spend money and we didn't have to pay insurance or pay rent. So that held us up for a long time. And then as soon as I knew I had a place, I just started putting it out on social media. We need tinkers and menders. And they all they all responded.

WHEELER:

Do you do any repairs yourself? Do you have any expertise in the repair field? No.

RING:

You know, I'm the volunteer coordinator, and so my job is making sure that all the logistics work and that everybody knows what's happening and that the people who are doing the repairs stop and eat lunch and don't get dehydrated. And that's sort of my job. I'm just like the den mother of the repair cafe, I guess you could say.

WHEELER:

So, there's Repair Cafe soon. I believe it's the day after this will air, so do you want to give a plug for this upcoming Repair Cafe?

RING:

Yeah, this is gonna be our second repair cafe in Eureka. We're now gonna be alternating between Arcade and Eureka, and it will be at the Adorni Center on Sunday the 15th, starting at 10 in the morning and running till two in the afternoon.

WHEELER:

All right, Adorni Center, 15th, 10 to two.

RING:

And everybody's welcome. It is free. And folks should know that, you know, if there's a large number of people who bring things and there's a big waiting, a big waiting line, then you might only get one thing repaired.

WHEELER:

Fair enough. So I, I will pose to you perhaps an ethical dilemma that might come up at one of these repair cafes. Do you ever have somebody come in with like a dirty two stroke, like leaf blower or something like that, a gas, small gas engine, you don't want to deliberately repair it because of the emissions from it.

RING:

No, we don't, we don't judge.

WHEELER:

RING:

Judgey and what we have I the only things that I know of I we have done some weed whackers

WHEELER:

okay all right so you can even bring in your two-stroke engine and you won't be you won't be judged folks

RING:

but it has to be clean. And so, so what, we didn't really talk about what kinds of things we fix. Yeah, please go ahead. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we have, we have sewing and mending and with people with sewing machines and hand, a circle of hand menders, small appliances, electronics, computers, furniture, jewelry, tool sharpening, and, and lamps. We have a special station that's just for lamps because people's, there's so many lamps that come in for some reason. So, so it's a pretty big spectrum of repairs that you can get. Our rule in terms of what you can bring is that it can't, it has to be something that one person can carry in by themselves. So we're not going to fix your washing machine, you know, or a car, you know.

WHEELER:

Yeah. Unless perhaps you can carry it in your stomach.

RING:

I forgot to say bicycles too.

WHEELER:

Okay, and there's other places for help with your bicycle. You can always go to the bike cafe and get some help there.

RING:

Yeah, if folks want to volunteer, the way to volunteer is you go to tinyurl.com slash humble dash RC, and you can sign up to volunteer. All the dates of the cafes and all the volunteer slots are there to sign up.

WHEELER:

All right, we'll get on it folks. And Wendy, as you said, the next Repair Cafe is this Sunday, March 15th from 10 to 2 p.m. at the Adorni Center in Eureka. And this is a monthly affair now? Yes. And so then the next one in April will be in Arcata as you're switching off back and forth between Eureka and Arcata. So if you can't make this month, there will always be next month.

RING:

Right, and we have a Facebook, Humboldt Repair Cafe, so you can look on there to see when the upcoming dates are.

WHEELER:

Okie dokie. Well, Wendy, anything that we've missed so far in this conversation?

RING:

I think that's about it. You know, one of the things I think is really interesting is when you're thinking about this embedded carbon is to consider consumption-based carbon accounting instead of territory-based carbon accounting because you get a really different picture that way. And we can take it down to the zip code level right here in Humboldt County. There's a calculator that Berkeley runs. It's coolclimate.berkeley.edu. And you put in your zip code and it shows you the household carbon emissions for your zip code. And then you can make different choices and it will on the calculator and it will show you what impact that has on your carbon emissions. It's kind of cool. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, yeah. And we actually stack up pretty well in Humboldt County compared to the Bay Area because I think we are in general not big consumers here. Mm-hmm. So we actually are more around the 33 tons per household per year and the Bay Area is more like 60.

WHEELER:

So what is the kind of relative role of consumption in our greenhouse gas emission profile? So I'm familiar from the Climate Action Plan that the Climate Action Plan for Humboldt County says that transportation is the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions. And I think I've seen similar numbers for the United States that transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. What is the role of the things that we consume, how much of the greenhouse gases relatively come from this category?

RING:

Well, I mean, when you're looking at consumption-based, you're still counting the consumption of gasoline, for example, and gas, natural gas, and that. So transportation and energy, household energy, are still transportation and then household energy. And then generally speaking, it's this next category, the consumption, the buying of things.

WHEELER:

So if we

RING:

Yeah.

WHEELER:

Okay, buying new things is number three, which is very substantial. You are listening to the Econews Report. We're talking with Wendy Ring about the repair cafes where you can get your stuff fixed and help reduce your greenhouse gas emissions in the process. If we were to try to be better consumers and purchase things that are themselves more repairable or have a lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with their production, what are your recommendations for folks if you are thinking about your next dishwasher or your next weed eater or whatever it is that you might be purchasing?

RING:

I'm not sure for every category. For electronics, there is an organization and they have a website, it's called iFixit, and they rate new devices on how repairable they are. So you can make sure that you get something that can be repaired. I mean, there has been, you know, a long industry strategy of making it so you can't fix things, or making it so that it costs as much to fix it as it does to buy a new one.

WHEELER:

The Apple computer I'm using right now is a great example of that. To ever get into this thing requires very specialized tools and heat and adhesives. And if anything were to ever happen to my MacBook Air, it probably would just go into the scrap heap as opposed to any attempt to fix it.

RING:

Yeah, so when you're going to buy something, an electronic thing, going to iFixit to see how repairable the different devices are is a good place to start. The other thing that we have at the Repair Cafe, one of our volunteers takes laptops and replaces their outdated operating systems with Linux. Because a lot of computers, the other thing that happens with computers is that the manufacturer stops supporting it after a certain age and so then you don't get all the security updates and a lot of people at that point will just get rid of that computer, throw that computer away and get another one and that doesn't have to happen because you can replace the operating system and Linux is a good operating system, it's actually, I mean the US military uses it because it's so stable and Netflix and Amazon and all these other companies use it. So it's not some kind of janky thing that you think of that only nerds can use, it looks very much like.

WHEELER:

And yeah, the modern Linuxes that you can find for free online have very, very normal operating systems or user interfaces that will feel familiar if you're a Mac user or a PC user.

RING:

And if your computer has gotten really slow, wiping the operating system and replacing Linux speeds it way up. So that's another service that you can get at the Repair Café is rejuvenating an old computer so that it can last longer.

WHEELER:

Want to talk about right to repair laws and the fight to be able to do things like fix it yourself.

RING:

Yeah, I mean this has been going, over the last couple of years, state by state, there have been laws that have been passed that force the manufacturers to make things more repairable or to provide the tools and the access in order to get that done. And a lot of that movement was started by farmers because the very complicated farm equipment that we have now often needs to be repaired or adjusted, and if you're a farmer and you have a very narrow window for weather-wise or season-wise for accomplishing, for sowing seeds or plowing or whatever it is that you have to do, and your machine is sitting there in the field, for you to wait until some company person comes from far away is a problem, and the farmers a lot of times do know how to fix things. And so they were a lot of the impetus behind the Right to Repair movement. It was a very interesting coalition.

WHEELER:

Yeah. Well, so there's, there's John Deere as a famous example. And another interesting famous example are the soft serve machines at McDonald's. So McDonald's has a contract with the manufacturer of their soft serve machines that only the company is to make repairs on them. And there were some, there are often issues with McDonald's soft serve machines and to get the licensed technician out to, to fix it costs a bunch of money. And McDonald's franchisee owners were, were upset. And some of them started to look for other ways to fix their own machines, to read the codes on the machines and understand what was going wrong and get them back online for cheaper, faster. And this also started a fight between this random company that makes soft serve machines and McDonald's. So we have so many interesting examples of right to repair hopping up in unexpected places and, and odd coalitions of folks, McDonald's franchisee owners and farmers leading, leading the way. I also want to give a shout out to a, a Washington state U S representative Marie Gluesenclamp Perez, who has been one of the folks who has been leading the right to repair movement. She's been introducing bills in the United States Congress related to the right to repair. And this has been this interesting bipartisan issue where you have anti-corporate Democrats on one side who are irritated at the way that they're sticking it to the little man by limiting their ability to repair things. And then you have conservative farmer types who also recognize that their, their constituents need to be able to do repairs. And this is part of the good American farming way is fixing things with bailing wire and duct tape. So an interesting movement for sure, especially in this age of, of affordability.

RING:

So that iFixit website that shows the relative repairability of new devices also has instructions and how do you access the things that you need in order to do repairs because California has a right to repair law. And one thing they added that I haven't tried is they have an AI bot where you can go on there and you can say this is what's wrong with this thing I have and they sort of help you figure out what it is and how to fix it, which is pretty interesting for those who are handy and want to take that on. That's pretty neat. Yeah. The other thing, of course, is don't buy a new one. Buy a refurbished is the other thing, especially with electronics. And there's a company called Backmarket, which is a reputable refurbisher, and you can get stuff for about half price and it has a year warranty. And again, you know, you're cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half if you buy a refurbished.

WHEELER:

And I will say that I don't think EPIC has ever bought a new computer. Everything that we purchase here at EPIC is refurbished. And that's not out of some sort of like ideological purity or commitment to the movement of not buying things new. It's just the reality of being a poor nonprofit. Refurbished items are also going to be significantly cheaper and you can get effectively the same product for a lot less. So I will I will stand by refurbished laptops. That's that that's the only way I've ever bought laptops. That's the only way I will ever buy laptops.

So embedded carbon, this idea of having products that last, I think that this is also a an opportunity to to move away from things that are designed to not last. Right. So there is a movement in fashion away from what's called fast fashion, where it's cheaply made, mass produced garments that try to capture what is cool and trendy at the moment. I think that we all have probably items in our closet closet that once looked really cool and were hip and that we wouldn't dare be seen in today because they are out of fashion. So I think that there's there's this other side, too, of trying to consume or when we are consuming buying products that are going to be timely and that are going to last, that are designed to be replaced, but also are made of higher quality materials that are going to persist longer and could be things that get passed down from generations. Any thoughts there, Wendy?

RING:

Well, I think I think that is true. And it's really interesting in the repair cafe, because we see people bringing in, you know, I mean, the newer things don't last as long. I mean, they're kind of built to not last as long. And so but we see people bringing in, say, like old blenders that they got from their grandmother, or I mean, you really can see the contrast, I guess, when people are bringing in old things that were built to last compared with some of the newer stuff. So I don't know how you go about finding the going back to your grandmother, dead grandmother and getting her blender, but but but trying to make sure that the thing that the things that you buy are the sturdiest that they can be, I think is, is, and are more repairable, I think is important. And I think it's, it's, it's encouraging to me to see the, the big increase in the popularity of thrifting. And I mean, you know, gosh, I think Humboldt County might have more thrift stores than bars now.

WHEELER:

There have been a lot that popped up in the last five years, haven't there?

RING:

Yeah, which is I think a sign of a generation that sees that as something which is good to do instead of, oh, don't make me wear secondhand clothes. So I think culturally, and that's the whole thing of the Repair Cafe, we're trying to nourish that culture. And so it's coming from more than one place.

WHEELER:

So I wanted to give you an opportunity to share some of your favorite stories because I imagine that there have been some nice kind of heartwarming moments at Repair Café where somebody does bring in their grandmother's blender or something that's sentimental. Does anything kind of stand out to you as one of the reasons why you keep doing it, beyond climate, but like the emotional connection to folks and the ability to help people?

RING:

You know, I mean, it tends to sort of make me think of the weirder, more miscellaneous things that come in. Somebody brought a snow globe that had real sentimental value, and someone else brought in a teddy bear when the arm was off and they couldn't figure out how to reattach it. And I mean, it's just a lot of the times. And I do think that when you're doing a repair, it adds not just like to put something back to the way it was. I think it adds some kind of value in terms of how we feel about those items.

WHEELER:

I think that that's absolutely right. I think that, that having the repaired in part kind of enhances the item. It shows that the care and the love exists. I have shirts that were repaired by a, by a friend and I can run my finger over the, the visibly mended stitching on the outside and I I'm happier. I'm happier that it's been repaired in some sense, because it reminds me of my friend. It reminds me of the things I love about this, this shirt that I got at some good will in Seattle, you know, 20 years ago, it, it enhances the product. It doesn't take away from it.

RING:

I think so. I think so. And I think that the whole experience, I mean, even people who bring things that were not able to be fixed express their gratitude that they were able to find that out so that they can feel okay about throwing something away because they tried. Yeah. And we all tried. And so, you know, it's really, if knowing the science was enough to spur climate action, we would be in a very different place by now. What we're looking at is we have a cultural problem, we have a psychological problem, which is in the way of dealing with this huge crisis that's coming down on us. And the Repair Cafe at its root really is a way of trying to change that way of thinking in a way that is not, we're going to take this thing away from you and your life is going to be grim, but we're, you know, we're going to come together and help each other.

WHEELER:

We're going to build community while we fix your things. What, what a lovely, lovely sentiment. Well, Wendy, we are unfortunately out of time. I want to give you an opportunity, one last chance to plug the next repair cafe and how folks can get involved.

RING:

Okay, it is on Sunday the 15th from 10 to 2 at the Adorni Center in Eureka and first come, first serve. To volunteer -- I think we're all filled up for volunteers this time -- but if someone wanted to volunteer for a future repair cafe. It's tinyurl.com/humboldt-rc. Well, or you can just look on our Facebook page and find that.

WHEELER:

Well, thank you so much, Wendy, I unfortunately will not be able to attend this repair cafe, but I'll see you at the next one. And listeners, thank you so much for joining us. Join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the north coast of California.