New rules will give you the right to repair

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If you’ve spilled coffee on your PC or dropped your mobile phone on the ground, it can be very expensive and difficult to get the damp keyboard and broken screen repaired. The manufacturers would rather you buy a brand new product, so they do everything they can to make it expensive and difficult to replace the broken parts.

But there are many who have eventually had enough of this business model. Gradually, a whole international movement has emerged, which calls itself Right to Repair or “Right to Repair”. It unites everything from Belgian environmental activists, French consumer rights organizations and German tech geeks who have in common that they are very tired of the major manufacturers deliberately making electronics and mechanics harder for ordinary people to repair.

The nerds are far from the only ones who have had enough

In a survey by the statistics agency Eurobarometer, 77 percent of the Europeans asked answered that they would rather repair their things than throw them away and buy new ones, but that this is often not possible.

The problem is not only about saving money, but also about using the earth’s resources in a more sensible way. New research shows that the world’s CO2 emissions from electronic waste are only rising and rising. In the EU, electronic waste is the fastest growing type of waste.

In 2017 alone, more than 3.5 million tonnes of electronic waste were collected in the EU countries, and although some of the waste is reused in one way or another, only 40 percent of the materials are recycled. But if more things are repaired, both the amounts of waste and the use of the earth’s resources are reduced.

The pressure from below gradually helps to create change from above

In both the EU and the US, new rules are now on the way that will make it easier for consumers to repair their things, without manufacturers putting artificial obstacles in the way. The US state of New York has already passed the law “Fair Repair Act” and Washington state also has a rights-of-way repair law.

In the EU, the European Commission presented a long-awaited bill on 22 March this year. Among other things, it will oblige the manufacturers of a number of electrical appliances to offer repairs for the products they sell, if overall it is cheaper to repair than to throw them away and buy new ones. The purpose is both to help consumers save money and become more sustainable, but also to create the basis for growth for a new industry of small and independent repair shops.

The EU proposal has been welcomed, but has also received criticism from the repair movement who believe that the European Commission does not go far enough. Among other things, the criticism is that the proposal only applies to a selected list of products, such as washing machines, vacuum cleaners and mobile phones. And even if the consumer is to be given the option of a repair, the manufacturer may just raise the price of a repair so high that it is not worthwhile for the customer, reads the criticism.

Instead, the movement wants everyone to be able to buy original spare parts at a reasonable price, and for repair manuals and other special tools to be made available to everyone – so that both private and small independent repair tools have an opportunity to join.

If the EU finally adopts the bill, it will have a major effect, because it will apply to all EU member states. But while we wait for the EU, some countries have already started to introduce their own laws to save electronics from being thrown in the trash.

In Austria, for example, the state now pays half of the bill when you get your old speaker or other electronics repaired. In France, in 2021 they introduced a labeling scheme that allows the consumer to see how easily a product can be repaired before buying it.

Although there is still a long way to go, there are still signs that consumers are reclaiming the right to repair.





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