Cairns repair and recycle gurus that can save you money
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THE art of repair is back in style, thanks to a growing passion to cut waste and beat the cost of living crisis.
Cairns residents are fortunate to have access to many skilled craftspeople who can repair and refurbish valued items from furniture to clothing, and even aircraft.
When it comes to aircraft maintenance and refurbishment, Skytek chief engineer Reece Booij is proud the Cairns aviation engineering firm has an excellent policy regarding salvaging every component possible.
“All the material which we don’t use gets recycled,” he said.
“A lot of components which can be repaired go back to the manufacturer and what can be reused goes in to scrap recycling.”
With 30 years’ experience, Beveley Lannan said she was still thrilled to help her customers achieve the perfect fit.
“People bring me their clothes and my job is to make it fit as well as possible,” she said.
“My customers cover all ages but the majority are women in their 30s or 40s who know their own style who want clothing altered to look and feel amazing.”
From wedding dresses to fancy frocks, hems and tops, Ms Lannan is kept busy at her Edge Hill business Bev’s Sewing Studio.
“I love that they come in feeling ordinary and walk out feeling fabulous,” she said.
Cairns Regional Council director Cairns of infrastructure and assets Mark Wuth said in the 2021-22 financial year around 1250 tonnes or around 10 per cent of the residual waste brought into transfer stations was diverted from landfill and generated sales at the Buy Back Shop of $720,000.
“The objective of the Buy Back Shop is primarily to provide an environment that encourages people to reuse, repair or recycle items that were intended for landfill and this assists in achieving the state government objective of 70 per cent diversion from landfill by 2030,” he said.
“We do attempt to select items that we believe can reused, repaired or recycled themselves.”
Theo’s Shoe Hospital has been the go-to place, for 67 years, to get repairs for shoes, bags and leather goods.
Monica McLeod has been working on footwear repairs for the past 20 years since her father bought the Shields St business and was joined several years ago by another family member, Mick McLeod.
Ms McLeod said as well as handling the sewing such as replacing the elastic webbing in RM Williams boots, she also makes bespoke sandals.
“Mick handles the heavy work such as the resoling and heeling,” she said.
“We get work from all over the state as we are one of the last shoe repair businesses offering quality such as Mick cutting all the new soles from leather rather than using cheap glue-ons which don’t last.”
Clocking up 40 years in the upholstery business, Rob McNamara said he loved transforming furniture from worn-out to wonderful.
“Since Covid I’ve been very busy and currently my wait list is to September,” he said.
“We got very busy when the borders shut and people decided to get their furniture refurbished increased.
“There’s been a real resurgence in mid-century furniture and I am really pleased that people are choosing to have older furniture repaired rather than end up in landfill.”
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Originally published as Cairns repair and recycle gurus that can save you money
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