A year or two back our son’s bicycle was left in the driveway and got driven over by mistake. Both wheels needed to be replaced. We took the bike to a local bike shop to be repaired. The guy said it would be much the same price simply to buy a new bike and throw away the old one.
It may not always make sense to repair rather than replace. Sometimes repairing something takes so much time and requires so much driving around that in the end its neither economically nor environmentally particularly appealing. In many cases, however, I think repair is preferable to replacement for the metrovore.
I think a key reason for this is that by repairing something we move economic activity nearer-by – you are paying your local bike shop for someone’s time, rather than paying a Chinese factory worker for his time.
Another key point is that we substitute resources for services – I would rather pay for someone’s time down the road, than pay for more metal to be mined and processed 1000 km away, shipped to China, turned into a bicycle and shipped back, with commensurate energy use and carbon emissions.
Reselling something with a markup has a smaller ‘value-add’. Providing a service has a much greater value-add. Let’s spend on local services with high value-add. This way we we build local wealth and end living in safer, healthier and happier communities. And by repairing instead of replacing, we [often!] use fewer resources along the way.
We fixed the bike, by the way.
Ginger and Cocoa 