Americans are rediscovering the fusty fix-it shops and unassuming secondhand stores on their local Main Streets. These businesses, once the left-behind nooks of gentrifying downtowns, are busier than ever amid an economic slump that's emptied out neighboring bistros, boutiques, and day spas.
On a Saturday afternoon in downtown Alameda, Calif., Gabe Morgan waits in a line of customers at The Watch Hospital to get a timepiece fixed. The economic downturn has made him think more about repairing than buying new.
"For the first time in I don't remember how long, I got some shoes repaired," says Mr. Morgan. He dug out three pairs from his closet for resoling. "I wanted to save some money."
For decades, repair and reuse have been fading ethics, upheld mainly by environmentalists and people on the economic margins. As hard times drive these values back into the mainstream, champions of reuse caution that some government policies and business practices threaten to set back the movement.
"We were a mend-and-make-do society, and we have completely changed. We don't fix anything anymore. We use, throw away, and buy more," says Bruce Buckelew, a former IBM engineer who has repaired more than 30,000 computers and put them into public schools, nonprofits, and low-income households in Oakland, Calif. "The worse the stock market gets and the bleaker the job market, the better for reuse, actually."
Some early signs:
•Sales increased year-over-year this fall at 74 percent of secondhand stores surveyed by the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops (NARTS). Ninety percent of the stores saw an increase in new customers.
•Business is "booming" at the estimated 7,000 shoe repair shops in the US, according to John McLoughlin, president of the Shoe Service Institute of America. "At some shops, you have to wait three or four weeks, which ordinarily is just unheard-of," he says.
Before the economic downturn started mainstreaming the reuse trend, the reuse market tended to attract people who saw it as conserving both their money and the planet's resources, says John Lastovicka, a frugality expert at Arizona State University in Tempe. People who voluntarily try to reuse items often view the effort as an enjoyable challenge, his research has found.
"Unfortunately, part of this is probably a lost art. The 'greatest generation' that lived through the Depression, this was part of their day-to-day behavior," says Professor Lastovicha. Far fewer people have carried on that tradition because it's time-consuming and can be something that people laugh at. "It can be a tough sell, unless you have to do it – which is what's happened."
Source: Christian Science Monitor, 1/12/2009
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