Is your phone charger on the fritz? Or maybe your bike needs some fine tuning. The University at Buffalo is hosting a repair fair on its north campus Monday that can address these issues and many more.
It is happening as part of the Post-Landfill Action Network Points of Intervention Campus tour. Among students, faculty and visitors, college campuses can produce quite a bit of waste. Many student possessions, for example, can end up in the trash on moving out day.
Instead of throwing out that small appliance with a broken knob, however, how about getting it fixed? UB Sustainability Education Manager Erin Moscati said this is an opportunity for community members to connect with people that have repair skills.
Having vehicle troubles? The UB Car Club will be showing participants how to perform quick fixes. A student production team will also offer tips on rolling wires and caring for electronics.
"We all know that we have these items and maybe on a lamp, the cord is broken and we look at it and think, 'This is a perfectly good thing,'" Moscati said. "'I don't want to get rid of it, but I don't know what to do with it now that it's not working as it should be.'"
She does not want people to go dumpster diving to claim usable items.
"What PLAN did was they helped us to identify a process that we could engage in so that we could adequately collect and siphon off the good stuff that was still usable and valuable to people," Moscati said, "and then refurbish it over the summer and then we offer it back to students in a big yard sale at the beginning of the school year in August."
Moscati said that is how their relationship with PLAN started.
The event runs from 12 p.m.-3 p.m. Monday and is free and open to the public. A panel discussion about the linear consumption economy will follow at 4 p.m.-5:30 p.m.
