This blog post provides good background on the history of repair clinics at the Environment Department. For up-to-date information, please visit our main repair page.
Did you know that San Franciscans send 4,500 pounds of textiles to landfill every hour? Most of the 39 million pounds of textiles San Franciscans send to the waste stream each year can be reused or recycled into insulation material, flooring, packaging, or cushioning in stuffed toys, insoles, and bags.
The fix-it clinic model was started in Berkeley by Peter Mui to encourage sustainability and responsible consumption. Community members interested in repair volunteer as fix-it coaches, and community members that need repair bring their broken items to be disassembled and fixed. Fix-it clinics repair anything from clothing, electronics, and small appliances. In San Francisco, the Inner Sunset fix-it clinic model was put on by local neighborhood residents. Neighbors that had repair skills offered free repair over the weekend to other community members. San Francisco Environment Department (SFE) was inspired by the neighborhood fix-it movement and built upon it to spread fix-it clinics throughout the city.
SFE partnered with the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) to build city-wide fix-it clinics at public libraries. SFPL is a trusted resource for many residents and is geographically distributed across San Francisco, so residents have access to a local library close by. SFE and SFPL piloted SF fix-it clinics to further develop their existing sustainability partnerships, such as Green Stacks. Green Stacks helps residents learn and implement sustainability into their lives through public library events, booklists, and real-world examples. SFE and SFPL’s fix-it clinic pilot program started in the winter of 2022. The fix-it clinics focused on repairing clothing and bicycles as textile waste makes up a large portion of material that end up in our city’s landfills, and bicycle repair can be expensive and inaccessible to many. Bicycle repair also supports the city’s Climate Action Plan to encourage residents to use sustainable modes of transportation in order to alleviate traffic congestion and build more bicycle infrastructure. The fix-it coaches teach residents basic mending and stitching skills to reuse and repair clothing, and basic bicycle repair to increase bicycle accessibility.
"The goal of the fix-it clinic program is to educate San Franciscans on actions they can take from our Climate Action Plan, which is to increase their awareness for repair and to have opportunities to engage with organizations that provide repair, such as our partners SCRAP SF and Bike Mobile. We have seen a lot of community support and desire for the fix-it clinic program to expand to more library branches and schools. Free repair is a community need, and we are hopeful to bring access and equity to the repair movement!" - Freddy Coronado, SFE Residential Zero Waste Specialist
SFE and SFPL held three fix-it clinics at the Anza, Main, and Bayview library branches in December 2022, January 2023, and February 2023. These three events had over 150 residents where 168 items were repaired, specifically 98 bicycles and 70 clothing items.
The fix-it clinic pilot program was a success! SFE and SFPL will continue the partnership through the next fiscal year focusing on clothing and bicycle repair for now. The program is committed to expanding fix-it clinics throughout the city whether it is at community-based organizations, city departments, or schools in order to get students to be a part of climate action and the repair process.
There will be more fix-it clinics in the upcoming fiscal year! The next fix-it clinic will be on October 25 at the North Beach Library. To learn more about upcoming fix-it clinics, please refer to SFE social media accounts or the SFPL events page.