Reduce, reuse, recycle, repair: DuPage environmental organization targets a new fourth 'R'
While the three R's reduce, reuse and recycle constitute the most well-known mantra of the eco-conscious, Kay McKeen of environmental education nonprofit SCARCE says a fourth ‘R' should be added: repair.
SCARCE, based in DuPage County, is hosting several workshops this year with the goal of getting people to keep their stuff rather than throw it away. So far, the organization has put on presentations about knives and bikes, and it has programs queued up on garden tools, lamps and clocks.
McKeen, the founder and executive director of SCARCE, said repairing is inherently connected to the other R's. The workshops focus on reducing waste by not only repairing broken things, but also by choosing high-quality items, maintaining them and, if possible, recycling them at the end of their life.
At the knife workshop, for instance, sharpening expert Bill Storm of Naperville walked participants through how to identify long-lasting knives to buy, how to properly store knives and where to drop them off so that the metal can be salvaged.
“We're excited that in that way of reuse, there's also repair. We're calling repair the fourth R for us,” McKeen said. “This is kind of a new educational path. Wouldn't it be cool if more groups had resources on it?”
The bike workshop, which covered simple repairs that people can make on their own as well as tools people can bring with them on a bike ride, was presented by Working Bikes, a nonprofit bike repair shop based in Chicago.
The next program will focus on sharpening and maintaining garden tools and will be part of SCARCE's May 6 Green Garden Market, where both Bill Storm and Working Bikes will be present to take in knives for sharpening and bikes for repair.
The market also will have compost, vegetable seedlings and native plants for sale, alongside educational workshops on outdoor composting, worm composting, chickens in your yard and invasive species.
Repair events for lamps, clocks and potentially textiles are in the works, McKeen said, and a rerun of the knife workshop is planned for September. The workshops take place at SCARCE's reuse center in Addison.
McKeen added that she has high hopes for the future of repairing as a new educational sector in environmentalism and conservation.
“Our dream would be to have a whole repair fair, where there's the shovel sharpener at one booth and a knife sharpener at another booth and the clock person here and a lamp person here,” she said.
SCARCE also is working with Ellman's Music Center in Naperville to help repair musical instruments for local schools.
The repair program has been a long time coming. McKeen tried to start it up last year but had trouble finding the resources.
“I couldn't even find anybody who would repair anything, much less have money to give them a stipend to help,” she said. “This time, we want to start repair fairs and have money for stipends and extra flyers. We're trying to get this going. Oak Park has a repair cafe, and there's an international repair cafe organization, but out here in the suburbs, it's really hard to find.”
Repair cafes are free meeting places where community members come together to repair things. Cafes often have tools and materials on-site to help visitors repair everything from clothing to electronics.
The Oak Park Repair Cafe, located at the Fox Park field house at 624 S. Oak Park Avenue, has repair coaches available and is open the first Saturday of every month from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Since opening in 2013, the free cafe has repaired more than 700 items. The organization asks that guests bring only one item for repair due to high demand.
Between the repair workshops and the instrument program, SCARCE's repair initiatives are funded with a grant from the DuPage Foundation, a local philanthropic organization that McKeen said has made all the difference for SCARCE in the past. Previous grants have helped kick-start the placement syringe collection bins throughout the county, as well as pumpkin smash composting events.
“Some things have a one-time impact, but the syringe collection bins have been going now for over 10 years, and the pumpkin composting is now going statewide,” McKeen said. “When they help us do something, we help DuPage — but then it goes so much bigger.”
• Jenny Whidden is a climate change and environment writer working with the Daily Herald through a partnership with Report For America supported by The Nature Conservancy. To help support her work with a tax-deductible donation, see dailyherald.com/rfa.