Remade in Edinburgh: inspiring reuse and repair

Sophie Unwin of Remade in Edinburgh has written an article on Scotland’s Common Space web site about how learning to repair and reuse benefits the community.  Remade in Edinburgh teaches repair and reuse skills, and sells recycled and upcycled IT equipment and furniture. The inspiration for starting Remade came from Sophie’s experience of living for a year in rural Nepal, where very little was wasted or thrown away. Back in the UK she got to thinking about how we should value people with useful fixing skills should be more than we do, and planted the idea for creating a reuse and repair centre, with a business model of repair education. Remade in Edinburgh started in 2011 with £60 and a group of volunteers. Now in 2016 it has 10 employees, 20 volunteers and over 10 freelance tutors. It still relies on some core funding from Edinburgh Council and Zero Waste Scotland, but about 50% of their income currently comes from business activities and that is projected to grow to 80% by 2018. Read more about Remade in Edinburgh in Sophie’s article ‘Remade in Edinburgh, and the vision of creating a network of community reuse and repair centres’ on the Common Space web site.