Everything can be fixed, even Italians discover the benefits of repairing

From Restart Parties to Repair Cafés: the story of a rapidly growing phenomenon. Thousands of jobs created, and the end of the slavery of buying a new product. When will we also have tax benefits for repairers?

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benefits of repairing objects

The ritual formula does not provide for alternatives: «You should buy it new…». It's the response we get every time we try to repair a household appliance or an electrical or electronic device. Spare parts are unavailable, the repair costs too high, and the damage is irreparable. Nothing can be done. And instead repair objects, without giving in to the forced purchase of the new model, it's coming back into fashion.

ADVANTAGES OF REPAIRING ITEMS

Of course, we're not in Sweden, where a law was even introduced that halves VAT (from 25 to 12 percent) and allows even the smallest repairs to be deducted from tax returns. But we're in Italy, where change always starts from the bottom. from our lifestyles, from consumer habits, and from those who are able to intercept them.

ALSO READ: Repair and save: Sweden offers a raft of incentives and bonuses for those who do so. And what about Italy?

ADVANTAGES OF REPAIRING

The most active channels of this new repair economy are two, the Restarters, which we imported from Great Britain, and Repair Café, of Dutch brand. In the first case, these are real communities that, thanks to the amplification of the web, organize the Restart Party where any electrical or electronic object can be brought back to working order. They're like weekend markets, except that computers are assembled and disassembled here. televisions, washing machines, smartphones, all objects potentially removed from the waste chain or from the waste of domestic oblivion (we have, on average, 8 small appliances per family, thrown away in some drawer). restart party are spreading in Lombardiain Piedmont and Veneto, with an epicenter in Toscana, where the community Restarters Florence It even has a Facebook page updated with the weekly event. "Ours is a concrete response against the scam of planned obsolescence and in favor of consumer freedom, who should not be forced to always buy new products," explains Giovanni Trippi, president of Restarters Florence, now able to schedule around fifty events a year in Tuscany alone.

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TO KNOW MORE: Restart Parties are coming to Italy: small, free repair parties where anyone can participate.

WHERE TO REPAIR APPLIANCES

The second channel is that of the Repair Café, born from the volcanic imagination of a Dutch mother, Martine Postma, tired of being forced to change continuously cellular and hair dryer. Today Repair Café Foundation it's a network, with 1.500 points for the repairs, throughout the world, of which 12 in Italy, from Trento to Rome. To open a Repair Café An association needs to be created, a workplace identified, and a few days and hours a week made available to the public: the proceeds from each repair are then split between the repairer (80 percent) and the association (20 percent). "There's a lot of interest in our business, and only politicians haven't yet understood its value, both for employment and for reducing waste. We need something similar to the incentives offered in Sweden..." says Francesco Pelaia, founder of Fix-it-all Rome.

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TO LEARN MORE: Repair Café, where everything starts working again, creating new job opportunities (Photo)

JOB OPPORTUNITY REPAIRING OBJECTS

The most interesting thing about the Swedish experiment is that, despite the low cost of the measure and the tax breaks ($54 million a year), the government is already reaping a double dividend: on consumption and employment. Per Bolund, Swedish Finance Minister, says: "The facts are resoundingly disproving the prejudice that repairs depress consumption. The opposite is true. People are inclined to buy better quality products precisely because they receive maintenance services and know they last longer. Furthermore, repairs require great skill, not advanced training. So there is a segment of the unemployed, usually disadvantaged, who are benefiting greatly." In Italy too, the repair industry is creating job opportunities in sectors of thehandicraft that were at risk of disappearing: tailors and shoemakers are increasing and shops are being re-opened for mending and repairs. But the most striking example, also due to its size, is that of the small workshops where bicycles are rented and repaired: around 3 people work there, recruited in part as a result of the long-standing bicycle boom, the means of transport now chosen by 800 Italians for commuting to work.

Finally, the repair industry is inflating demand for used cars, which in Italy is a veritable industry spread across the country. This market is worth 19 billion euros a year (40 percent of which is generated online), and according to Doxa, half of Italians make purchases at least once a year. used productsAlmost always repaired or to be repaired.

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(The images are taken from the Facebook page “Restarters Florence")

STORIES OF PRECIOUS REUSE. AT ZERO COST:

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