This month, we spoke to Libby Peake, Head of Resource Policy at Green Alliance about their work on waste and resources, and how we can get the UK government to act urgently to tackle these issues. Libby begins by giving us a rundown on government resources policy over the last decade and how it stacks up to the measures that have been put in place …

Do you know the most effective way to reduce our waste? If you’re a regular listener, then probably yes. But it may surprise you to find out just how many people believe that recycling is the answer to our climate crisis. This February, Keep Britain Tidy released a report on how to talk about avoiding waste more effectively with the general public.…

For our final episode of the season, Ugo and Fiona sat down for a chat about the year that was 2023. From launching the Repair and Reuse Declaration to the biggest Repair Day ever to some major wins for Right to Repair across the world. It’s been an amazing year and we couldn’t have done it without our community here in London and further afield. W…

We’re going on a repair road trip this month as we talk to Simon Frémineur and Jinny Uppington about their respective mobile repair initiatives. Travelling repair cafes are a popular idea in our community, with quite a few iterations popping up across the UK and abroad. We speak to our guests about the benefits of a mobile unit, including being abl…

On 30th September, over 100 fixers, organisers, researchers, and more from around the UK came together for Fixfest UK 2023! This year’s edition was held in Cardiff and co-organised with our friends at Repair Cafe Wales. We spent the day sharing our experiences and expertise on how to build the movement and bring repair to the fore both locally and …

Pinball machines are whirring and circuitboards buzz as we talk to ‘super-fixers’ Rob Howard and Matt Marchant from the TV show Retro Electro Workshop, about the experience of making a show about retro repair and how to encourage more people to repair their things. Retro Electro Workshop features Rob, Matt, and Shamil (who you will remember from ou…

In the final episode of our summer season, we talked to author and journalist, Oliver Franklin-Wallis about his new book entitled, Wasteland: The Dirty Truth about What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters. Oliver spent four years researching waste of all kinds, the people that handle it, and its effect on our planet. Having just conduc…

Have you ever binned or recycled something that was still working, or could have been repaired? The answer is likely, yes. Based on the results of our recent Waste Composition Analysis, conducted with West London Waste Authority (WLWA), it’s a habit that is even more common than we thought. This March, we spent a week looking at small electrical pr…

This month, we take a deep-dive into a local repair and reuse ecosystem. Brighton seemed like a great case study for this so we spoke to Victoria Jackson and Sam Jarman from Brighton Repair Café and Dr David Greenfield from Tech-Takeback, two of the amazing projects working together to reduce waste in the city. A decade of repair with Brighton Repa…

This month we talked to author and communicator, Katie Treggiden about her recent book entitled, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World. Katie has put decades of thought into helping creatives and makers become more sustainable but also forgive themselves when they can’t be. Back to her roots Having grown up surrounded by nature in Cornwall,…

This week we’ve been celebrating London Repair Week by highlighting the heroic repair businesses all over the city. Our directory of repair shops, LondonRepairs.org, was recently relaunched with a new dedicated website. Here you can find over 300 reliable businesses to fix your stuff. In this month’s podcast, we spoke to two of these repairers abou…

This month, join us for an expert panel on community-led high street repair! We gathered together Katie Bellaris from Re:Make Newport, Elaine Brown from Edinburgh Remakery, Sue Briggs from The General Store Selkirk, and Lorna Montgomery from Share and Repair Bath to talk about their experiences setting up high street repair projects in their area. …

It’s been an ongoing question in our community of how to get young people involved in repair culture. In this month’s podcast, we were delighted to talk to students, Carl Mau and Beat Schneiderhan, and their teachers, Felix Lossin and Walter Kraus, who have a plan. Based at the Rudolf Steiner School in Munich, not only do they have a weekly repair …

We’re officially in the holiday season now and like many, we have presents and toys on the mind. For our December episode, we spoke to Anaïs Engelmann and Megan Hale from Team Repair. They run a 12-month fixing programme that could be a perfect gift for any young person in your life. Starting fixers young The team of Team Repair is composed of five…

This month, we spoke to Restart’s Shelini Kotecha and Possible’s Dermot Jones about Fixing Factories. We’ve been working with Possible to open up two Fixing Factories this year, gathering lots of interest along the way. The Brent Factory, based in the Abbey Road waste facility opened in April this year and has been a hub for laptop repair and reuse…

From 30th September – 2nd October, members of the repair community from all over the world gathered together to share their ideas and passion at Fixfest 2022. From fixers and tinkerers, to academics and activists we all had something to teach and learn from each other. It was a chance to explore new ideas, hear different perspectives, and – perhaps…

This month, we had a very handy conversation with some friends from our sponsor eSpares. Eleanor Cochrane and Mariya Peynova are the Brand Manager and Social Media Manager for eSpares, respectively. We took this opportunity to properly introduce our listeners to their work and also answer a few questions about household repair and maintenance. In t…

To wrap up our summer season, we’re giving listeners a proper introduction to Restart’s new(ish) Co-Director, Fiona Dear. You will have heard Fiona’s voice a couple times on Restart Radio in the last few months, and her fingerprints are all over the new projects that we’re working on. Dave spoke to Fiona when she had just joined Restart to have a c…

It’s a bumper episode this month but how could it not be when we’re celebrating the 10 year anniversary of our first Restart Party! This episode is an auditory snapshot of Restart as we head into our second decade as an organisation. Earlier in the month, we got together with volunteers, allies, longtime collaborators and supporters to celebrate th…

This month, we were super excited to talk to Ben Wood. Ben is Chief Analyst at CCS Insight and also the founder of the Mobile Phone Museum. All this to say, Ben is an expert in the field of mobile phone design and history. We talked to him about some of the coolest phone design trends of the past and what innovation is still happening. He also shar…

We’ve had a busy month here at Restart. On April 23rd, we launched the first Fixing Factory site in the Abbey Road Reuse and Recycling Centre, Brent. It’s a project that we are ecstatic has finally become a reality and we can’t wait to see how it blossoms. For this episode of Restart Radio, Ugo Vallauri is joined by our Co-Director, Fiona Dear and …

This month, we welcomed back Aaron Perzanowski to talk about his new book, The Right to Repair: Reclaiming the Things We Own. In the book, he explores how we got to this point of companies weaponising the law to make repair inaccessible and how legal reform can help. We discuss the developments in the technological and legal landscape that pushed h…

With the opening of the first Fixing Factory fast approaching, we spoke to one of the partners we’ll be working with, Ready Tech Go (RTG). Nikos Souslous is one of the Co-Founders of Ready Tech Go. He talked to us about what inspired the organisation’s creation, the importance of digital access, and how RTG is going to evolve. Recognising the need …

Four months after its launch on Repair Day 2021, we spoke to four people involved in the repair network, Repair Café Aotearoa New Zealand. Brigitte Sistig is the co-founder and project lead of RCANZ. Kahurangi Carter is National Coordinator for Māori Zero Waste organisation Para Kore. Sarah Pritchett is Sector Projects Manager for WasteMINZ. And Dr…

As 2022 gets on the road, we spoke to Jenni Gwiazdowski, founder and Director of London Bike Kitchen. With cycling taking more prominence in recent years, due to concerns about pollution and safety on public transport, what better time to learn more about maintaining and fixing your bike? Gwiazdowski tells us about her journey from amateur fixer to…

Having spent the year talking to many activists, authors and repairers in the UK and Europe, we thought we would hear from somewhere a bit further away from home. We spoke to Mathew Lubari, a repairer from the Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Lubari is the founder and a team leader at Community Creativity for Development (CC4D), an environm…

As 2021 draws to a close, Janet and Ugo reflected on this precarious but successful year. Despite many setbacks, we have made great strides towards the Right to Repair in both the UK and the EU – even though there is still a long way to go. In London, Restarters have also done a fantastic job supporting each other and their communities in many new …

This month we talked to author and activist, Alice Bell about her recent book entitled, Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis. Bell’s extensive research into the topic along with her work as a director at Possible, made her the perfect person to join us in the month of COP26. In November, we were thinking a lot about carbon …

We hear a lot about carbon emissions in the news and they are a major culprit in the climate crisis. Sometimes, it can be difficult to track where these emissions are coming from. Manufacturers are rarely thorough or honest in accounting for their output. As individuals, it can be frustrating to not have control over this. In celebration of Repair …

We revisit an episode from 2018 with photographer and friend of Restart, Mark Phillips. Phillips has an exciting exhibition, ‘Repair is Essential’, co-produced with Alex Horn of West Central London Fixers, currently showing at The Tabernacle in London. You can check it out through Sunday 17th October! Phillips’ portfolio is expansive and immersive.…

This month we spoke to Dr Karen Patel from Birmingham City University about her work on Craft Expertise, a project researching inequalities in the craft sector and documenting experiences of makers from marginalised backgrounds. Dr Patel interviewed over 20 women on their experiences in craft. Her research pertains specifically to the craft sector …

Our summer podcast season has come to a close and what a time it’s been! We revisited our archive and picked some of the episodes where our discussion touched on the pandemic and the events of the last eighteen months. Throughout the episode, we hear select clips from nine recent guests and situate these discussions. We cover healthcare, from paten…

Happy August, listeners! We’re on our summer break but there will be a special podcast episode in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we have a simple ask for your help. Please take a couple of minutes to complete the Restart Radio listeners survey. The last time we conducted a survey of listeners was in 2019 and we found it incredibly helpful and t…

As summer gets into full swing, we get down and dirty with a craft that is all about unlocking the natural resources that we are standing right on top of – cob building. Kate Edwards runs Edwards Cob Building where she teaches complete beginners how to build a cob house – literally – from the ground up. In addition to her teaching, Edwards also wor…

Before we get into the news and our Summer Reading List, here’s a plea to respond to our listener survey. We last did one of these in 2019 and found it really helpful in improving our work and making sure that our listeners enjoy the content that we produce. Fill it in here! Right to Repair – in the UK and abroad Has the news in the UK surrounding …

This month, we had the pleasure of talking to repairer and activist, Jessa Jones. Jones is the founder of iPad Rehab and has carved out her own space in the repair world as a self-taught microsolderer and logic board repair teacher. We found out what makes her approach to repair and teaching unique, why she is so impassioned in her work, and what t…

As businesses and community spaces are able to pick up operations again, we talk to Alys Penfold about her work with Library of Things. Penfold is currently the Borrower Support Lead at Library of Things and tells us about their mission, their impact, and exciting new locations that are opening soon. While we were regularly going into the office, R…

This month, we talk to fellow podcasters Abby Rose and Jo Barratt from Farmerama. Farmerama is a monthly magazine show that aims to share the voices and experiences of regenerative farming. By combining their experience in farming, tech, and podcasting, they have managed to create an award-winning podcast that brings the farming community closer to…

This month, we are revisiting the topic of medical repair and reuse. Our interview was originally published more than a year ago but the issues at hand have not been fixed. We spoke to Dr Tarek Loubani and his colleague, Reidun Garapick about how perspectives need to change so that reuse of medical equipment is the norm. An example of this is the r…

What’s the most frustrating advert you’ve seen recently? Or have you noticed a peaceful ad-free bliss after spending a year mostly indoors? This month we talked to Robbie Gillet from the climate charity Possible about their Badvertising campaign, which seeks to correct misinformation and stop harmful adverts that add to the climate crisis. This mon…

Following the election results in Greenland last week, we are revisiting an episode of Restart Radio from back in 2018. Three years ago, we interviewed Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway about their documentary, ‘Kuannersuit / Kvanefjeld’ which explores the feelings of local residents in Narsaq about a proposed mine near their town. A mine that’s exi…

3D printing technology is increasingly being used to aid repair, especially in the creation of spare parts. We invited Bas Flipsen and Julieta Bolaños Arriola to talk about their work in the field and how 3D printing can help solve the e-waste crisis. Flipsen is a senior researcher for the Faculty of Engineering at Delft University of Technology (T…

As schools start to open again across the country, we revisit the incredible work that repairers are doing to get laptops in the hands of students. Two organisations that have been supporting the laptop reuse effort are Mer-IT and Hackney Fixers. We talk to Mercedes Oli and James Diamond from both of these groups, to find out how it’s going and wha…

2021 is shaping up to be a big year for repair. At the beginning of the year, France introduced its new Repairability Index. Via this legislation, the government hopes to inform consumers about how repairable products are before purchase. By extension, it also aims to encourage manufacturers to make repairability a priority. Recently, the European …

On February’s episode of Restart Radio, we discuss gaming, printers, and toothless “voluntary agreements” with manufacturers. Ugo Vallauri is joined by Holly Davies and James Pickstone from Restart as well as Ernestas Oldyrevas from ECOS. He helps us to better understand some of the finer details of EU policies on these two industries and why there…

Omana George has dedicated herself to supporting workers’ safety for years. She is now the Monitoring Coordinator for Electronics Watch, an organisation that monitors manufacturing and supply chains in order to support “public buyers” to make more ethical and informed decisions. The impact of Covid on workers George informs us that many of the long…

It may be a new year but we are still pressing for change in all the same places. On January’s episode, we revisit the topic of “digital inclusion” as schools are once again forced to close. Janet and Ugo are joined by Ben Skidmore, as they discuss why digital inclusion is more than just getting laptops into the hands of those in need. Later in the…

For our last episode of the year, we so happy to bring you this interview with laser interactive artist, presenter and Repair Café volunteer Seb Lee-Delisle. Restart first met him at Hackaday’s Unconference in London a couple of years back. (In recent years, we’d noticed he became a regular at his local Repair café.) But during the past decade, Lee…

It’s our final radio show of a year full of bad news, and we have some good news to share. To kick us off, Janet and Ugo speak to Jonathan Samuels, a lighting designer who has worked in live entertainment for decades. After theatres and live performances were shut down this year, Samuels adapted and launched a new business in lighting refurbishment…

This month, Dave talks to John Wackman and Elizabeth Knight who are prolific in the New York repair community. After years of involvement in repair cafes, they decided to share what they learned by writing a book. Repair Revolution: How Fixers Are Transforming Our Throwaway Culture, is a lesson in how to start a repair cafe and how to fix. Knight a…