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Archinard-Piquet Lycée Mermoz 2021-2022

Méthodologie de la Khôlle

1D2 – groupe 1 -- CAN WE FIX IT?

A vacuum cleaner, a hair straightener, a laptop, Christmas lights, an e-reader, a blender, a

kettle, two bags, a pair of jeans, a remote-control helicopter, a dining-room chair, a lamp and
hair clippers. All broken.

It sounds like a pile of things that you’d stick in boxes and take to the tip. In fact, it’s a list of
things mended = fixed = repaired in a single afternoon by British volunteers determined to
get people to stop throwing stuff away.

This is the Reading Repair Cafe, part of a burgeoning international network aimed at
confronting a world of stuff, of white goods littering dumps in west Africa and trash swilling
through the oceans.

The hair clippers belong to William, who cheerfully describes himself as “mechanically
incompetent”. He has owned them for 25 years, but 10 years ago they stopped working and
they have been sitting unused in his cupboard ever since.

He sits down at the table of Colin Haycock, an IT professional who volunteers at the repair
cafe, which has been running monthly for about four years and is a place where people can
bring all manner of household items to be fixed for free. In less than five minutes, Haycock
has unscrewed and removed the blades, cleaned out some gunk from inside the machine, oiled
the blades, and screwed it all back together. The clippers purr happily. Today, the repairers
will divert 24kg of waste from going to landfill and save 284kg of CO2.

Gabrielle Stanley says she was drawn to volunteering at the repair cafe to combat the
“throwaway culture” she sees. “You go into certain stores - “how can they sell clothes for that
price, when I couldn’t even buy the fabric for that much? And then you hear about things that
happen [in the factories] in the far east.”

An estimated 300,000 tonnes of clothing was sent to landfill in the UK in 2016 and a report
from the charity Wrap puts the average lifespan for a piece of clothing in the UK at 3.3 years.

Globally, the amount of e-waste generated is expected to hit 50m tonnes by the end of 2018.
This is partly driven by consumers’ eagerness for new products, but there are also concerns
about built-in obsolescence, in which manufacturers design products to break down after a
certain amount of time and are often difficult or expensive to fix.

Repair cafe volunteer Stuart Ward says that when fixing items is actively discouraged by
manufacturers, repair becomes a political act. He is vehement about the “right to repair”, a
movement opposed to the practices of companies like the machinery company John Deere,
which, under copyright laws, doesn’t allow people to fix their own equipment or take them to
independent repairers.

Adapted from The Guardian, March 2018 (458 words)

CAN WE FIX IT?

I. Understanding the text

1) Read the title: can you guess what the text is about?
P. Archinard-Piquet Lycée Mermoz 2021-2022
Méthodologie de la Khôlle

a) Fixing the British/French relationship in the wake of Brexit

b) Fixing the price of oil
c) Fixing broken objects rather than buying new ones

2) Reading for a purpose

Read the first paragraph. Were you right?

3) Skimming the whole text:

WHO? English (British) volunteers & customers
WHAT? Fix broken objects instead of throwing them away
WHERE? READING Repair Café
WHEN?
WHY? So as to avoid buying new stuff and to limit pollution
HOW?

4) Scanning the text for more specific information.

 Types of goods? household items (“brown goods”) ; electrical devices
(computers, e-reader); furniture; clothes.
 Environmental advantages? Less pollution (for example, in one day of
repairs, around 300 kg of CO2 not emitted onto the atmosphere, a couple of
dozen kilos of waste not thrown away)
 The “throw-away culture”:
o Consumerism & built-in obsolescence: manufacturers produce goods
that are meant to break down quickly to increase consumption
o “300,000 tonnes of clothing thrown away in the UK in one year, only
3.3 years for the average lifespan of a piece of clothing”
o Consumers are always craving for new products

o “things that happen (in the factories) in the far east”

 in countries like China, Vietnam… there is a form of slavery going on: FORCED labour /
cheap labour = cheap quality = huge quantities (of clothing, of all kinds of consumer goods)

5) Choose the sentence which you think best summarizes the text.

II. Towards a summary

P. Archinard-Piquet Lycée Mermoz 2021-2022
Méthodologie de la Khôlle

Introduction:
o AMORCE : social event / recent news… ?

INTRO 1 Recently in Germany, young activists for the climate took to the street to remind
us all that the environment remains a burning issue, even after months of the Covid-19
pandemic. However, demonstrating is only one way in which people can act and in this
article, published in the Guardian in March 2018 // three years ago, the journalist gives the
example of the Reading Repair Café where people also try to fight against pollution and
protect the environment.

INTRO 2 On 29 September 2021, the world marked its second International Day for
Awareness on Food waste and loss, which shows that we are all becoming more aware about
the necessity to stop wasting the things we consume, in particular food, because of the
significant environmental impact this has. The issue of waste / wastefulness is also mentioned
in this article, on a more global way, published in the British daily press a couple of years
ago, since it deals with the example of the Reading Repair Café where people also try to fight
against pollution and protect the environment.

Summarize the text :

This article deals with people in the UK who volunteer to repair broken objects (for
other people) for free instead of simply throwing them away.
They do this in opposition to the “throw-away culture” which is responsible for the
mass pollution of the planet. Indeed, mass production and mass consumption are based
on goods that are deliberately manufactured to break down quickly and be replaced
rather than fixed. This includes household goods, e-devices or clothing. The problem
has become a world-wide issue, with poor countries not only manufacturing the goods
rich people throw away but also directly hit by pollution.
The journalist shows that everyone is guilty of the ways things are: the consumers are
guilty because they are always craving for new things, but this is the result of our
consumer society, as well as the fault of manufacturers which rely on built-in
obsolescence to increase their profits.
The journalist concludes that trying to go against this throw-away culture today has
become a political act.
P. Archinard-Piquet Lycée Mermoz 2021-2022
Méthodologie de la Khôlle

TRANSITION : So this article was very interesting because it presented….

III.Towards a commentary
Choose TWO or THREE different points in the text that you would like to develop and try to
think about other examples you could use to illustrate these ideas.

Plan 1
1. The definition of the consumer society & the issue of overconsumption
2. Economic theories and environmental impact
3. Alternative solutions: decrease of consumption, de-growth

Plan 2
 The journalist alludes to…. This is why I’ll first develop the phenomenon of fast-fashion
and show why it is linked to a modern form of slavery.
1. Fast-fashion (as an example of) modern-day slavery
2. Initiatives to fight against this phenomenon / modern form of wasteful consumption
 second-hand clothing and other apps to avoid waste
Consumers’ alternative ways of consumption
3. The role of companies & governments?

Plan 3
 the issue is whether the different means of action and levels at which people can act are
enough to really address the issue.
1. Individual commitments
2. Collective action
3. National & international engagement

Plan 4
To what extent can our consumption habits be considered as an issue and in what ways can
we fix this?
1. Environmental damage linked to production methods
 built-in obsolescence // plastic

 example: confronting a world of stuff, of white goods littering dumps in west

Africa and trash swilling through the oceans.

* the issues with “recycling” e-waste in west African countries (dioxin, poisoning of
both the environment and humans)

*The eighth continent made of plastic waste / recent decision on France to stop using
plastic for single fruit.

2. The social consequences in poor countries

* mass production of cheap consumer goods depends on cheap labour

 “You go into certain stores - “how can they sell clothes for that price, when I couldn’t even
buy the fabric for that much? And then you hear about things that happen [in the factories] in
the far east.”
P. Archinard-Piquet Lycée Mermoz 2021-2022
Méthodologie de la Khôlle

An estimated 300,000 tonnes of clothing was sent to landfill in the UK in 2016 and a report
from the charity Wrap puts the average lifespan for a piece of clothing in the UK at 3.3 years.

FAST FASHION  Bangladesh, Rhana Plazza 2013?

Thousands of casualties.
H&M, Primark…. / Nike, Adidas / Hermes, Louis Vuitton

Not the first scandal, this has been going on for a long time.

3. The political and individual means of action

The role of the media, of social media in revealing the truth // “naming and shaming
collective awareness

 consumers’ means of action: boycotts, petitions to put pressure on companies // radically

change their consumption habits (buy second-hand, “buy nothing day”)

 CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility = la RSE): environmental criteria, social criteria

(treating their employees well, ensuring subcontractors treat workers well too), political
criteria

 political ways?
Quotas on imported goods? Protectionist measures? Reshoring companies? Taxes

Conclusion
To conclude, the next COP 26 summit will be the occasion to see whether or not countries
have really decided to take the measures that have become necessary to address climate issues
among other.