A community-driven event empowers residents to repair household items in a hands-on effort to build a more sustainable future
By Cecilia Wallace
To the average person, a blender, fan or stereo may seem like a feat to fix, but at the Roseville fix-it clinic, they have you covered.
On Saturday, Ramsey County held its monthly fix-it clinic at its new Roseville Environmental Center, which opened on April 1.
The clinics began in 2015, and the events’ success has translated to this new facility, coupled with its recycling wall, drive-thru, reuse room and more.
“This facility is popular because it was built with community input,” Division Manager of Environmental Health Daniel Schmidt said.
Attendees brought in items such as vacuums, lamps, clothes and more for fix-it volunteers to try and revive.
The volunteers may have a skill they bring to the events or knowledge from an occupation.
“I think a lot of them are retired engineers or just had a hobby that moved them into this space where they have knowledge and ability to kind of take something apart, identify what’s wrong, fix that, and put it back together,” Schmidt said.
When someone is unsure how to fix an item, volunteers collaborate to solve the problem together.
“All of these fixers would probably say that their ability to fix things has grown exponentially since they started doing this because you just find yourself in situations with new problems or new products, new information, and then they’re kind of feeding off one another,” Schmidt said.
One attendee, Tina Hammer, attended her first fix-it clinic this Saturday, hoping to repair her DVD player and flashlight.
“I showed up today to familiarize myself with how it works,” Hammer said. “I have these things that are taking up space in my house, and I haven’t thrown my flashlight away, but I also haven’t been able to use it.”
Hammer heard about the event through the District 10 newsletter and her friend, who had attended before.
“I don’t love the idea of a throw-away culture,” Hammer said.
Ramsey County hopes to reduce waste, minimize this “throw-away culture,” and educate residents through hosting events like this.
“This facility needs to be more than [just an environmental center],” Schmidt said. “It needs to be a community resource where people can, like the mayor of Roseville said, learn from this, take things away. It’s like a knowledge center, and the residents need to be our partner.”
The fix-it clinics and other center resources are not exclusive to Roseville residents, Schmidt said.
“This facility is available to any resident of the metro region,” Schmidt said. “We have a reciprocal use agreement with the other six metro counties, so it’s a seven metro county reciprocal use agreement.”
That kind of regional cooperation, Schmidt explained, is essential not just for access, but also for tackling larger environmental issues.
“We have a huge waste problem in our society, but globally, and we need to change behaviors,” Schmidt said. “There’s not a silver bullet. It takes multifaceted approaches, multifaceted solutions, and it really takes individual efforts, and so, the fix-it clinic, like I said, that’s really the side of our programming that’s changing behavior for residents.”
Cecilia Wallace can be reached at celiadw016@gmail.com.
Photo courtesy of Cecilia Wallace
