The Repair Cafe returned to the Glen Ridge train station on Saturday.
It was an opportunity for residents to have household items in disrepair — repaired. The cafe is in its third year. It occurs in the fall and spring and is conducted by the Glen Ridge Environmental Advisory Committee.
“Repairing is a dying skill, fixing things,” said Amanda McCabe, committee member. “We had our first repairs in 2023, at the Arts-Eco Fair. Then we started having the repair cafe twice a year. This spring, we asked people to pre-register. We had over 100 people. It was jam-packed.”
Mark Murphy, another committee member, was trying to rebend the legs of an unstable ironing board. The people working on the repairs brought their own tools. Murphy was bending the legs with his hands.
“How many things can be wrong with an ironing board?” someone passing by asked.
But Murphy and the others take pride in fixing things as best as possible. So when the board was finally stable, he turned his attention to the screeching the legs made when being closed.
James Clark was nearby trying to make a lamp function. Its switch was broken.
“I may have to by-pass this,” he said, “and put in a different switch.”
The owner of the lamp, Margo Bruton, sat watching. She has had the lamp for 20 years.
“It stopped working about three weeks ago,” she said. “It wasn’t the bulb and I needed someone to help me. I saw information about the Repair Cafe on Facebook and I thought, ‘miracle of miracles!’”
Sharpening knives were Polly Murphy and Drew Fessenden. Polly Murphy inspected the blade she was working on.
“It looks like a knock-off of a Japanese knife,” she said, “but it works fine.”
She picked up a sheet of paper and easily sliced it. The blade was very sharp.
“You have to be cautious,” she said. “Some people say you cut yourself more when the knife is dull.”
Stephanie Lee was darning a hole in a sweater. Darning, she said, was a skill that took some time learning.
“But once you get the hang of it, you’re darning everything,” she said.
Donald McCabe was focused on a small plug.
“It’s a USB plug,” he said. “It was all fouled up and broken. I straightened out what was bent. I think I was successful. I’m trying to put it together where it’s not so easy to break.”
For the consumer, Amanda McCabe said there was the question of the right to repair the product they purchased when the company that made it prohibits anyone from repairing it except the company.
Mark Murphy said it was his experience that products which a company claims a proprietary right to repair are extremely hard to repair anyway.
“Its easier to buy just another one,” he said. “Some companies are very controlling. Bose and Apple are like that.”
“So is John Deere, the tractor company,” said Brian McCabe. “The right to repair is a tricky thing. But I can see their side.”
Amanda McCabe said the environmental committee is considering having repair classes. The purpose of all this fix-it activity is to lessen the impact discarded items pose to the environment, according to the committee.
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