At this time of year, a lot of us become more aware of the crazy amount of waste that’s created every day, whether it’s at home, at school or at work. So, we thought it would be a good time to highlight some of the ways we can tackle this issue and reduce waste together.

1. Meet for a quick coffee and a fix in a Repair Café

How about starting with this: Just repair broken things instead of throwing them out?

“It’s a shame that people throw out broken items without, in many cases, even trying to repair them. We create a lot of waste in our daily lives and use way too many resources, which is not sustainable. I wanted to change this by stimulating people to start repairing once more.”

That’s how Martine Postma came up with the idea of the Repair Café. A place where neighbors meet to repair what’s broken: Kitchen and household appliances, CD and DVD players, lamps, but also clothes or bicycles.

Seven years after this idea was born in the Netherlands the Repair Cafés are now taking place in more than 30 countries across the world, including countries as different as the US, Ireland, Afghanistan, Japan, Germany or India. Usually people meet up once a months, bring in their broken items and volunteers help to fix them. It’s as easy as that.

Learn how to start a Repair Café

2. Become a Food Rescuers

FoodCloud believe that we should live in a world where no good food goes to waste while people are going hungry. All over the country, they’ve redistributed an amazing 2,730 tonnes of surplus food in the last two years from retailers to those who need it most.

This is all being done with the help of an app but way more importantly, with the help of volunteers who agree that no good food should go to waste.

Volunteers like Mary McGrane, a volunteer with the Dublin Food Rescue team.

I’ve never once come home after a night of volunteering and felt “Gosh, that was a waste of my time”. In fact it’s always the exact opposite, I feel so satisfied that I’ve helped to make a positive difference and I’m always humbled to be reminded how privileged my life is and not to take food or anything else for granted.

FoodCloud have a network of charities all over Ireland who need the help of local volunteers to make this happen. A fantastic way to have a huge impact by just giving a little bit of time every other week.

3. Become a ReCreator

Are you a passionate ‘DIYer’, an artist, a teacher or community youth worker? Then you will love this social innovation. ReCreate solves two problems at once: They reduce waste by diverting materials from landfill and provide accessible and affordable art materials and educational supplies to all sectors of the community.

If you enter the ReCreate storage looking at all the materials that are piling up in here you will burst with ideas of how to put them to a new creative use.

Our mission is to inspire curiosity, creativity and care for the environment.