You may know the phrase "out with the old — in with the new." But what if there was a way to salvage the old and make it "like new" and save some money?
Welcome to the Repair Café, a free monthly get-together in Buffalo, New York. Don Winkelman is among its volunteer "fixers." His job is to repair just about anything lying around the house instead of tossing it in the trash.
Dozens of Buffalo, New York residents have filtered through a local senior center hoping to keep their treasures from the landfill. Roller skates, fans, vacuum cleaners — just to name a few. The most popular item repaired is lamps.
Repair cafés aren't new. They first started in Amsterdam in 2009. Since then, similar "cafés" has popped up in every state in the country. The concept is essentially a speed-dating version of electronic repairs. Volunteer "fixers" are paired up with a broken item.
In Buffalo alone, the Repair Café has repaired more than 950 items and kept nearly 8,500 pounds of waste out of landfills. They do not keep tabs on the dollar amounts saved. The cafes are free to the public.
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This means you're not out any money by trying to save that $300 Dyson. The average table lamp can run anywhere from $10 to a couple hundred dollars. For a fraction of the cost, you can bring your current one back to life and not have to spend a dime on a new purchase.
It's not just electronics. Most cafés include a seamstress. The average price for hemming a pair of pants is $10 to $20. But at the café, it's free.
Susan Hanifan is one such volunteer seamstress.
"Some of the fabrics, I guess, in textiles, are just not as good as they used to be. But I always like to try to save. Save a piece of fashion or save a piece of a textile because, it's just one of the big, big contributors to our landfills," Hanifan said.
100 billion garments are produced annually. Of them, 92 million tons end up in landfills. That equals a garbage truckload of clothes thrown away every second.
It's one more reason repair cafes are about so much more than just a quick cup of coffee.
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