Ahead of London’s second Repair Week, new research by London Recycles has shown that the pandemic has accelerated more of a repair culture, with a quarter (25%) of Londoners saying they’re repairing more because of their slower lifestyle enforced by the pandemic.

While repair services may have been more difficult to access during this time, this didn’t stop people in the capital – 28% have used the time to teach themselves how to fix things, a figure that increases to nearly a third (31%) among 25-34-year-olds.

With 75% of Londoners believing we need to repair more to help tackle the climate emergency, findings suggest many are doing just that, with nine in ten people (93%) repairing something in the past year – a significant increase on the 72% figure reported ahead of the capital’s last Repair Week in 2020.

However, findings also indicate that 1 in 5 Londoners don’t feel confident mending a hole in clothing; so the launch of London Recycles’ second Repair Week on 14th-20th March provides the perfect opportunity to help more people learn and grow their confidence.

The week is being sponsored this year by Primark, who are hosting nine ‘Love it for Longer’ repair workshops in their Hammersmith, Oxford Street East and Westfield stores, and Currys, who are offering discounts on their in-store repair service throughout the week. A wide range of other organisations, including TRAID, Crisis and Ted Baker, are supporting Repair Week by running events or sharing tips, tutorials and techniques. With more than 20 of London’s councils already signed up, people will also be offered the chance to find local repair businesses to do their repairing for them.

Wayne Hubbard, CEO of ReLondon, said:

“It’s hugely encouraging that a positive can be taken from the pandemic and we’ve seen repair culture flourish in the capital. By empowering and giving people the confidence to carry out simple repairs, we can reduce the amount of stuff we buy and then send to landfill – and ultimately make a huge difference to the planet.

“Since our last Repair Week in 2020, we’ve seen the number of Londoners repairing grow by 20% so it’s great to see many organisations coming back together for our second year of action. With many new faces joining the initiative this year, offering practical tips and tutorials, we’re looking forward to seeing the collective impact.”

Lynne Walker, Director of Primark Cares at Primark, said:

“We are delighted to partner with ReLondon for Repair Week and to see so many Londoners, particularly young people, learning how to give their clothes a new lease of life through repair. We’re proud of the quality of our clothes we sell and we work hard to ensure our customers can wear our clothes time and again. These instore repair workshops build on our ambitions to give clothes a longer life and we hope customers will come away with some useful tips and advice on how they can love their clothes for longer.”

Dean Kramer, Services Director at Currys said:

“As the nation’s largest tech retailer, we want to ensure tech is fulfilling its full potential and has a life as long as possible, that’s why it’s important to us that our customers know the options when their tech breaks. We’re excited to be part of London Repair Week and want to use this opportunity to shout about the fact we have 1000s of experts ready to repair and help tech live on, in-store and online. We offer repair services, no matter where the tech was bought. We also have trade-in and recycling services, which means customers old tech can be refurbished and reused should they need to upgrade. Over the coming weeks, we’ll have discounted repair services, as well as recycling and trade-in events running in our stores.”

Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy, Shirley Rodrigues:

“In tackling the climate emergency and preserving our precious natural resources, it is vital that we take better care of the things we already own. While it is important that we continue to recycle as much as we can, we must prevent valuable materials from becoming rubbish in the first place.

It’s fantastic to hear that so many Londoners are embracing the art of repair and learning a new skill at the same time. Repair Week will build on this momentum, supporting even more Londoners to learn to repair as well as highlighting all the excellent repair businesses we have across London. This is a hugely positive initiative that contributes towards the Mayor’s ambitions to make London a zero waste city and a net zero carbon city by 2030.”