Repair cafés are popping up around the world to curb consumer waste

Inside Climate News charts the spread of the repair café — community spaces where volunteers help people fix broken toasters, lamps, clothing, and laptops for free. There are now nearly 3,200 of them across more than 40 countries, and in a single year they kept over a million pounds of would-be trash out of landfills. The movement is really about a mindset: caring for what you own instead of tossing and replacing it.

That fix-it-first ethos is exactly what OwnWise is built to put in everyone’s pocket, every day — not just on repair-café Saturdays. Describe what’s wrong and OwnWise pinpoints the likely fault, tells you whether it’s a safe DIY fix or a pro job, estimates the cost, and checks for coverage — turning “it’s broken, throw it out” into “here’s how to fix it.” Every repair is money saved and one less appliance in the waste stream.

Find a repair café near you for the hands-on help; use OwnWise for the diagnosis that starts every fix.