Bright Sparks – Shop pops up to save broken toasters

Published: 12 February 2010
by PETER GRUNER

LONDON’S first council-run domestic equipment repair service is being launched in Islington next month. Instead of throwing away that broken old toaster or hair dryer, you will be able to take them to a new shop at Finsbury Park where, for a small fee, it is hoped they can be repaired.

The service, Bright Sparks, is being launch­ed by the council at the offices of regeneration organisation FinFuture in Seven Sisters Road, opposite the railway bridge.

Highbury West Green councillor Katie Dawson, who thought up the idea, hopes the shop will prevent items being thrown onto landfill sites.

She said: “At the beginning people will be able to bring in small items, but we hope to eventually have someone to fix bikes and larger pieces of equipment like pushchairs.

“People will throw all sorts of things away when they can quite easily be fixed. But most of us are not very good at repairing things.

“As a mother I’m only too aware that a pushchair or buggy is often easily repaired and might just need a new wheel. Yet there are very few places which will do it, and parents are expected to fork out for a new one.”

She admitted that electrical equipment such as toasters are so cheap to buy from cut-price stores that there may not be any point in trying to repair them. “But if you’ve got a  product that is better quality than the one they are selling cheap then you will want to keep it for as long as possible,” she said.

As well as fixing goods, the shop will sell unwanted used items and train apprentices to become repair men and women.

Lib Dem councillor Greg Foxsmith, Islington’s environment chief, said the borough has increased the amount of rubbish sent for recycling from three per cent under the previous administration to 35 per cent. Furniture picked up under the council’s bulky waste collection is already passed to Homestore charity for reconditioning and re-use.

But this is the first time in Islington that electrical equipment is going to be re-used. The shop is expected to become a model for London.

He added: “Our consumer society throws away vast amounts of electronic and electrical goods, most of which just goes to landfill. A lot of what goes in the bin could go to a good home. 

“Even if it’s broken, it is often possible to mend it rather than just buying a new one. This is key to creating a more environmentally sustainable society.”

Waste electrical goods – from hair dryers to phones and washing machines – make up the fastest-growing waste problem in the UK. In one year the amount of electrical waste would fill Wembley Stadium six times. 

More than 75 per cent of discarded and broken electrical goods end up in landfill, where lead and other toxins can cause soil and water contamination.