Repair, reuse, recycle old tech at the Earth Day Repair Fair

Bring your glitchy keyboards, faulty headphones, orphaned cords and slow computers to the Cornell Bowers CIS Earth Day Repair Fair.

Volunteers will be on hand to help fix broken devices and to donate or recycle unneeded tech. They will accept "anything with a cord (including the cord)." The event will be held April 22 from 3-6 p.m in the Gates Hall lobby.

"In helping community members extend the lifespan of their existing devices and clear out old junk drawers, we're hoping both to keep tech out of landfills and change the way that they think about computing," said Dylan Van Bramer '25, the fair's organizer. "We were able to repair and recycle a lot at last semester's Repair Fair, and this time around, we hope to do even more!"

During the fair, consultants will be available from the Cornell Computer Reuse Association, the Ithaca fixing community and members of the Computing on Earth lab, which is directed by Steven Jackson, professor of information science and science and technology studies in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and vice provost for academic innovation.

Cornell Bowers CIS and the Campus Sustainability Office are sponsoring the event.

This is the college's first Earth Day event, and students are invited to learn about the environmental impacts of computing and consumer technologies, and how to lessen those impacts by reducing e-waste through Right to Repair efforts.

"This is a perfect way to celebrate Earth Day," Van Bramer said.

Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.