The San Francisco Bay Area
Research, Resources and Local Initiatives
We invite suggestions to add to this roster!
Research — The Bay Area
The Bay Area this should be a veritable hotbed of repair.
We are innovative, scrappy, and creative.
We're paying attention to the environment.
It costs too much to live here not to squeeze every ounce of life out of our things.
Alas, we’re not a hotbed of repair, there are some great initiatives offering exciting opportunities for getting out there, putting feet on the street for repair.
Bay Area Repair Resources and Initiatives
Also see Current Bay Area Events for links to other organizations supporting repair through hosting community repair events.
Fixit Clinic — Headquartered in The East Bay, Fixit Clinic operates in The Bay, nationally and internationally. Fixit Clinic has hosted over 400 Fixit Clinic STEM-oriented community repair events nationwide. Now turning its focus upstream, Fixit Clinic is working with university engineering and design programs at MIT, Harvard and UC Berkeley. Fixit Clinic participates in policy development in California and was a founding member of the Open Repair Alliance, an international collaboration among repair initiatives to standardize data collection. eTown bestowed its eChievement Award on founder Peter Mui, interviewed here. https://fixitclinic.blogspot.com/
Transition Berkeley — Berkeley, CA — Transition Berkeley hosts Repair Cafés (video), organized and ran classes in Berkeley Unified School District, and vigorously advocates for repair. Among their collaborators in Repair are Cal Zero Waste, and Berkeley Unified School District. Among their supporters are UC Berkeley, Stopwaste and The Culture of Repair Project. “Transition Berkeley brings neighbors and community members together to build a more equitable, sustainable, self-reliant future for Berkeley. We envision a strong, diverse local economy, with greatly reduced dependence on fossil fuels, and a healthy, cooperative, rewarding community life." https://www.transitionberkeley.org/
StopWaste — Alameda County, CA — Stopwaste has explicitly targeted repair as an area for focus, working through 1) the Reuse and Repair Stakeholder Group, 2) grant-making to organizations furthering repair (grants and mini-grants), and the Bay Area Reuse and Repair Community — Facebook Group. "StopWaste is a public agency responsible for reducing waste in Alameda County. We help local governments, businesses, schools and residents with projects and initiatives that: Increase recycling and reduce waste; Develop and expand markets for recycled materials; Provide technical and implementation assistance to increase recycling; Motivate people to make recycling and waste reduction part of their everyday routines; and, Reduce energy wastes and increase community resilience to climate change." — www.stopwaste.org
Tech Exchange OTX — Oakland — "... dedicated to providing digital equity to all East Bay residents. We employ an environmentally sustainable, re-use model by refurbishing donated computers and providing them to families, schools and community organizations. Over the last 20 years, we have distributed 40,000 computers to our community and diverted over 700 tons of e-waste from landfills." — techexchange.org
Berkeley Public Library - Tool Lending Library — Berkeley, CA — The Library often hosts Fixit Clinics, with the support of Fixit Clinic, Transition Berkeley and The Culture of Repair Project. Calendar is HERE.
SCRAP — San Francisco — “Our fashion design classes serve students 12-18 years old and center sustainable design practices in our curriculum. Students learn hand-sewing, mending, embroidery, embellishment, creative repurposing and garment construction. Classes are administered on school sites through partnerships with after school programs like YMCA Bayview and Boys and Girls Club." Further, programs “stimulate creativity and environmental awareness in children and adults through promoting the creative reuse of materials that traditionally have been discarded as waste." — www.scrap-sf.org
Palo Alto Repair Cafe — Palo Alto, California — "A volunteer-run, community service dedicated to encouraging the repair and reuse of goods rather than dumping them in landfill.” Hosts quarterly robust Repair Cafés. Operating in Palo Alto for over ten years, PARC was the first Repair Café Foundation affiliate in the United States.
https://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org/
Reuse Alliance — Santa Rosa, California — Locally focused events, advocacy, collaboration, information dissemination — "Our goal at Reuse Alliance is to advance a societal transition to a truly circular economy. We advocate for the development of reuse infrastructure, provide support to reuse enterprises, and forge collaborations between the reuse industry and other stakeholders. To reduce climate change, we must break the cycle of overconsumption by moving reuse from a cottage industry to the mainstream materials management strategy." https://www.reusealliance.org/
San Mateo County Sustainability Department — County of San Mateo, California — "The Sustainability Department strives to improve the sustainability of the County’s operations and the greater community through work that is designed to bring solutions today while solving for tomorrow. The Sustainability Department has programs to help the county both fight and prepare for climate change, ensure clean energy, water, and air, conserve resources for future generations through waste reduction, and support livable communities with affordable housing and infrastructure for biking, walking, and public transit." The Sustainability Department calendars Fixit Clinics in San Mateo County Public Libraries. Calendar.
The Crucible — Oakland, California — "The Crucible’s Bike Program is a free year-round community outreach program that addresses personal transportation needs. The Bike Program promotes an alternative, sustainable mode of transportation, while providing essential bike repair services to our community, diverting useable/salvageable waste from landfills, and reinforcing reuse of materials. Since 2005, over 7,000 youth have participated in The Crucible’s Bike Program, and thousands of bicycles have been repaired to nearly-new status. We know what a safe bike can do for our neighbors, and studies show that extends beyond individual impact. Communities that bike are safer, healthier, and happier. We are dedicated to getting Oakland back on bikes." https://www.thecrucible.org/
Mending Collective — Berkeley, California — “A collective of artists creating space for people to come together to learn and practice visual mending techniques. We are concerned with economic models dependent on escalating consumption and waste, specifically within the garment industry, but indicative of production in general. We counter this narrative through traditional practices of mending and the shared sensory and social experiences of mending together.” https://www.leezadoreian.com/mending-collective
Other People and Organizations in the East Bay
Doing Related Good Work:
Ecology Center — Berkeley — "The Ecology Center’s mission is to inspire and build a sustainable, healthy, and just future for the East Bay, California, and beyond. We transform the ideals of sustainability into everyday practice. We deliver information you can act on, infrastructure you can count on, and leadership for lasting change." — http://ecologycenter.org/
City of Berkeley, Department of Public Works — Zero Waste Program —http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/zerowaste/
City of Oakland - Economic and Workforce Development, Green Business — Economic Development staff are working on a number of fronts to grow green business in Oakland—from helping individual businesses to building regional partnerships. http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/CityAdministration/d/EconomicDevelopment/s/WFD/DOWD008135
The ReUse People — Oakland — construction materials
East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse — "...collecting discarded materials by donation from businesses, manufacturers, and the general public, keeping the materials out of the landfill, and offering them for sale at the Depot Store. Our customers are typically, teachers, artists and households to which we sell supplies at low cost." — creativereuse.org
University of California Berkeley:
Haas Center for Responsible Business — http://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/academics/sustainability.html
Cal Move Out and Cooperative Reuse — Cal Move Out supports responsible end-of-semester transitions by creating a pop-up exchnage service linking students with items they don’t want with community members. Cooperative Reuse is a furniture and mattress recycling program. Cal Move out also provides information and additional resources to facilitate a safe and sustainable move-out. https://calmoveout.com/
Recology — San Francisco — "Recology is an employee-owned company dedicated to building exceptional resource ecosystems that protect the environment and sustains our communities. Recology services move the proportion of resources that communities today call “waste” to their greatest productive re-use, thus creating a fundamental shift from traditional “waste management” practices to a fully-integrated resource ecosystem paradigm. The Recology resource ecosystem is comprised of four critical components: Collection, Recovery, Processing, and Marketing, which are all interconnected to optimize the material resources Recology recovers." www.recology.co
Other congenial resources include:
Community Energy Services Corporation, Oakland
PLACE: People Linking Art Community and Ecology, Oakland
Spokeland, Oakland
The Bikery, Oakland
The Shed at MLK Jr. Oakland Public Library
Main Street Launch, Oakland
Working Solutions, Oakland
Operation Hope, Oakland
Tool Lending Library, Berkeley Public Library
Tinkers Workshop / Waterside Workshop, Berkeley