Ealing repair café was set up in spring 2019, to encourage people to value clothing and repair or alter their clothes rather than discarding them.
Ealing repair cafe have monthly meetups around Acton and Ealing.
We provide a friendly, supportive environment and cater from absolute beginners to competent hand sewing, as well as providing basic materials (reused, recycled and repurposed when possible, of course!).
We started counting in January 2023 on what we teach and advise on mending, altering and upcycling and have been every event ever since.
For 2024:
378 items saved from going to waste, plus all the water and carbon savings from not buying new items. We spoke to 248 people to inspire them to take care of the clothes and more. We achieved this by attending 46 events at 21 locations.
For 2023:
267 items saved from going to waste, plus all the water and carbon savings from not buying new over.
We spoke to 378 people to inspire them to take care of the clothes and more. We achieved this by attending 49 events at 15 locations.
We will continue to help mend more and to inspire to you to repair your clothes.
Volunteers run the Ealing Repair café so we are limited in what we can do, but want to keep the momentum going. So if you interested in getting involved or setting up your own session, we would love you to support you, so please contact us.
Our first get together was on 5 February 2019 at Northfields Community centre in their smallest room with about 4 people. We managed to get through the pandemic find a new locations and grow into a multi location group.
The current fast fashion culture has so many issues. Luckily there are seeds of hope everywhere with clothing companies using sustainable textiles, making and using recycled fabrics, but progress is slow. To get the updates and see which are the best sustainable brands go to Good on you.
The industry is trying new schemes such as clothes take-back schemes but this article “Why one H&M Skirt Traveled 15,000 Miles After It Was Brought Back to the Store” shows these schemes don’t work. These schemes take your second hand clothes and promise to help prolong the life cycle of clothes.
In this article it concludes lo that take-back schemes are “another greenwashing trick” because they “fool consumers into believing that they are making responsible choices and creating an illusion that the fashion industry has its waste issue under control, when in reality they aren’t even dealing with the problem.”
We believe that valuing and mending your clothes is better than passing them to these take-back schemes. If you do need to pass on clothes give it directly to charities that are responsible with their clothes, by selling those that they can and then responsibly passing on the clothes that don’t.
At Ealing Repair cafe we want to encourage a circular economy, where clothes are repaired and recycled back into clothes.
The waste pyramid of Refuse, Reduce, Repair & Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose and Reclaim ♻️ is brilliant to focus our efforts:
REFUSE: We dont need the plastic bag at the check out or the extra packaging on items.
REDUCE: Reduce your general consumption. Don’t impulse buy!
RECLAIM: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!
REPAIR, REUSE & REPURPOSE: Fix it or repurpose it rather than throwing it away. Come along to our cafe to learn more.
RECYCLE: Make sure when chosing products that you recycle the packaging. where you can.
Ealing Repair Cafe is part of Ealing Transition Initiative which is a movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world.
Ealing Repair Cafe 