Grab a screwdriver and fix your broken gadget

Anita Baumgartner

06 September 2013

There are some things nobody likes to admit. You and I and maybe most people in developed countries have a problem. It might sit in a cupboard, be buried under your bed or in a box in the cellar.

I'm talking about those discarded electronic devices you don't know what to do with. Maybe they developed faults, became really slow or you simply broke them.

Taking them to the repair shop seems too much of a hassle. If our phone or laptop breaks, we need to replace them urgently. So most of us just buy a new device.

But throwing away old gadgets doesn't feel right. And, let's be honest; we don't want to sell them for a tiny little fraction of the price we once paid. Wouldn't it be great if you could fix them at home?

Technology experts the Restart Project want to encourage you to do exactly that.

They recently came into our office to hold a "Restart Party". We brought in our dodgy gadgets, from an electric razor that developed a mystery fault after two weeks to a hairdryer that kept overheating.

I was astonished how much we could fix with simple screwdrivers. With patient teamwork we opened up the eight year-old hairdryer. After cleaning the dust, we realized the real challenge was putting it back together and remembering which screw goes where.

Replacing the hard disk of an old MacBook was a piece of cake. But after examining the electric razor, it turned out to not be worth the cost of repairing. Poor design meant the part that had burnt out was impossible to access without damaging other bits of the mechanism.

It seemed that some of the devices weren't really built to last. Better design could have made a difference. That's why Friends of the Earth's Make It Better campaign is calling for companies to rethink design to make products last longer and be easier to fix.

Want to have a go at fixing yourself? Here are some top tips.

• Use the internet: Ifixit.com has step-by-step guides to taking apart gadgets;  and there are great tutorials on YouTube.
• Stay in your comfort zone and be safe - unplug any gadget and remove the batteries before working on it.
• Just have a go: when it's already broken, you can't really make it worse.

The production of new electronics uses a massive amount of our world's natural resources. So give it a shot, save money and tackle your electronic graveyard.

Anita Baumgartner, Volunteer, Communications and Media team