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The French capital, Paris, hosts a dozen 'repair cafes' -free, monthly initiatives that allow local residents to fix household objects and electronics with the help and advice of enthusiastic volunteers. Pioneered by journalist Martine Postma in Amsterdam in 2009, hundreds of similar workshops take place across Europe. Nearly two-thirds of Europeans would rather repair their products than buy new ones.

"We're society of waste and overconsumption,"says Emmanuel Vallee, organiser of the Repair Cafe Paris, which typically sees around 25 people attending per event, including some online, since it launched in May 2019. "We throw things away that we don't need to and buy new gadgets before exploring the possibility of repair. The cycle continues. It's a vicious circle."

For Vallee and repairers like him, there's a lot of work to be done. The world produced nearly 45 million tonnes of e-waste in 2016 as consumers and businesses threw out their old smartphones, computers and household appliances-material worth an estimated $62.5bn. Only 20% was property recycled. In Europe, where the problem is particularly acute, researchers estimate that only 12% to 15% of mobile phones are properly recycled - despite around 90% of the population owning one.

E-waste, which is often shipped illegally from the West to sprawling, toxic dumpsites in countries like the Philippines, Ghana, Nigeria and China, is expected to grow to more than 52 million tonnes by the end of 2021, and environmental impact ranges from huge carbon emissions to pollution of water sources and food supply chains.

But significant amounts of that waste could be avoided through repairs. According to a study, only 40% of electronics breakdowns in France are repaired. But surveys have found nearly two-thirds of Europeans would rather repair their products than buy new ones. French officials truly believe the current system is broken and needs to be fixed.

In an effort to defuse this vast amount of avoidable waste, France's National Assembly last year voted to introduce an index of "reparability" ratings for appliances such as washing machines, lawnmowers, televisions and smartphones. In doing so, the French government hopes to increase the electronics repair rate to 60% within five years.