As of: February 27, 2024, 9:30 a.m
By: Martin Becker
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Committed volunteers also get bicycles rolling again in the Pullacher Repair Café.
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The repair cafés in the Munich district are becoming increasingly popular.
Even with the new EU regulation for a “right to repair”, the volunteer inventors will not run out of work.
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- The inventive ambition to somehow achieve what seems impossible always leads to remarkable results.
Like the thing with the Barbie doll four-poster bed, on whose ceiling the light suddenly lit up again - and with it the owner's children's eyes.
An example from the repair café in Pullach, where volunteer experts repeatedly perform small miracles.
Like the one in the dollhouse.
A sign against the throwaway society
The Repair Café idea emerged in the Netherlands in 2010 as an alternative approach to the throwaway society, and there are also a number of such repair initiatives in the Munich district.
Despite the new EU regulation for a “right to repair”, their work will not run out.
“We are not a cheap repair service or competition to the professionals, but rather offer help for people to help themselves,” says Ulrike Haerendel, chairwoman of the Lebensswertes Garching association, where they have been offering repair meetings since 2016.
Tinkering and screwing: The employees in the repair cafés, like here in Taufkirchen, do everything they can to make defective devices functional again.
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In 60 percent of cases, the device can be repaired
Home visits are excluded; only transportable items are allowed, including screwdrivers and soldering irons.
The spectrum is wide-ranging: sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, lamps, radio alarm clocks, irons, kitchen appliances, slide projectors, children's toys, bicycles, printers, record players - in around 60 percent of cases a remedy can be found, unless some unobtainable spare part is missing.
Volunteers with specialist knowledge and fun
The experts who sometimes literally scrutinize all these things are often retirees from technical professions: engineers, electricians, locksmiths, aircraft technicians, computer scientists, mechanics.
In Unterschleißheim, a pharmacist and a carpenter also offer their help, and at the Schäftlarn children's network they now have “a younger IT technician on the team who takes care of laptops or Play stations,” reports Matthias Schmidt.
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The tinkerers in the repair café in Unterschleißheim get a defective video recorder working again.
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They all share the motivation to find a solution to keep broken things out of the trash can.
“Our hobbyists are happy to look for errors and traces in a community with like-minded people,” reports Hans-Werner Thürk from the Pullach Repair Café.
If one person reaches their limits, another cannot make any progress: “Have you ever seen something like that?
Do you have an idea?” Silvia Engelhardt, head of the VHS Taufkirchen, knows: “The inventors are really eager.” Nobody wants to give up too quickly.
Head of culture Lisa Zimmermann had similar experiences at the VHS Südost in Ottobrunn.
“With their specialist knowledge from their professional lives and their passion for handicrafts, our core of repairers inspire each other.”
There are also limits to what is possible
But of course the volunteers also have their limits.
“Our repairmen regularly work their hardest on fully automatic coffee machines,” reports Ulrike Haerendel.
Where is the limit to what is irreparable?
“Where it gets dangerous.” For example, with a fried hairdryer.
“We exclude televisions and microwaves from the outset,” says Hans-Werner Thürk.
Too risky – and often requires special tools.
That is exactly the point at which the new EU rule should start: that equipment is produced in such a way that it can be opened for repairs without destroying it.
Tricky cases
Repairing everyday objects could become easier, and the experts in the repair cafés continue to find the special appeal of unusual tasks.
Like in Unterschleißheim: “Once we had to replace a button cell on a teddy bear in order to bring the owner back the melody of her childhood.
Or someone came with a dragonfly made of die-cast zinc with a broken leg,” says Martin Birzl from Agenda 21. In Pullach, a boy had his favorite toy, a ruler, broken - the Repaircafé team was able to help.
Just like in Unterföhring, where the horses stopped running on a small music box carousel.
Martin Schmidt summarizes what applies not only to the Schäftlarn children's network: "When children's eyes shine, everyone is happy."
There is a list of over 50 repair initiatives from the region on the Munich Waste Management Company website: