Cardiff Metropolitan University

Connections & Community – Cardiff Mets’ Free Repair Cafe

Cardiff Met – Free Repair Café, a monthly recurring event held on each campus, providing free repairs for staff, students & community for household items, clothes, electronics, jewellery, bike servicing and security marking. Throughout the years, this event has become renowned for its contribution to helping staff, students, and community in Cardiff by repairing items for free.

Through this event, Cardiff Met is realising its purpose in today’s society: to benefit the lives of individuals, communities, and wider society by assisting with the cost-of-living crisis; facilitating skill sharing, waste reduction and reducing carbon emissions by extending the life of items.

Using the Repair Café Carbon calculator data, over the past 4 years approximately 150,849.20 kgs of CO2 emissions have been saved by fixing 2574 items (2695 brought - 95.5% successful repair rate). This is equivalent of what 6857 mature trees would absorb in a year.

Top 3 Learnings

1. Sharing heartfelt stories, attempting to change the sustainability narrative, helping shape behaviour change around consumption.
2. Appreciating free repairs, skills sharing and a cuppa, whilst networking towards a more sustainable society.
3. Building a sense of community where people feel able to come for advice & repairs.