“Repair, don’t discard” campaign

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The Agenda 21 – Sustainable City Department of the City of Geneva, the Agenda 21 department of the Town of Carouge and the Geneva branch of the FRC use the www.ge-repare.ch website to provide a list of addresses of businesses and craftsmen located within their municipal territory. The list is not exhaustive, but can be enriched and developed with the help of consumers. The project is currently limited to ten categories of object among those most frequently used: accessories (bags, belts, etc.), bicycles, clothes, e-bikes, electronic devices, furniture, household electrical appliances, IT equipment, shoes and telephones.

Manufacturing a good uses a large quantity of resources and energy (mining and processing raw materials, transport, etc.), not to mention the pollution generated by the production process. Producing a mobile phone weighing less than 200 grams, for example, requires the transport and processing of more than one tonne of raw materials. Furthermore, the production and consumption model of low-cost, frequently-replaced goods places negative pressure on the wages and work conditions of the people who produce them. It also generates a large amount of waste.

Through their work, the repair companies located within the city contribute to sustainable development while creating local jobs.

The City of Geneva and the Geneva branch of the FRC were given the Cantonal Award 2015 for sustainable development for this project.