“Right to repair” movement gains ground
If you buy a product — a car, a smartphone or even a tractor — and it breaks, should it be easier for you to fix it yourself?
Manufacturers of a wide range of products have made it increasingly difficult over the years to repair things, for instance by limiting the availability of parts or by putting prohibitions on who gets to tinker with them. It affects not only game consoles or farm equipment, but cellphones, military gear, refrigerators, automobiles and even hospital ventilators, the lifesaving devices that have proved to be crucial this year in fighting the
COVID- 19 pandemic.
Now, a movement known as “right to repair” is starting to make progress in pushing for laws that prohibit restrictions like these.
In August, Democrats introduced a bill in Congress to block manufacturers’ limits on medical devices, spurred by the pandemic. In Europe, the European Commission announced plans in March for new right- to- repair rules that would cover phones, tablets and laptops by 2021.
In this election, Massachusetts voters are considering a measure that would make it easier for local garages to work on cars. And in more than 20 statehouses nationwide, right- to- repair legislation has been introduced in recent years by both Republicans and Democrats.
Over the summer, the House advanced a funding bill that includes a requirement that the Federal Trade Commission complete a report on anti- competitive practices in the repair market and present its findings to Congress and the public. And in a letter to the FTC, Marine Capt. Elle Ekman and former Marine Lucas Kunce last year detailed how mechanics in the U. S. armed forces have run into similar obstacles.
The goal of right- to- repair rules, advocates say, is to require companies to make their parts, tools and information available to consumers and repair shops in order to keep devices from ending up in the scrap heap. They argue that the rules restrict people’s use of devices that they own and encourage a throwaway culture by making repairs too difficult.
They also argue that it’s part of a culture of planned obsolescence — the idea that products are designed to be short- lived in order to encourage people to buy more stuff. That contributes to wasted natural resources and energy use at a time when climate change requires movement in the opposite direction to rein in planet- warming emissions.
Manufacturing a new device or appliance is still largely reliant on polluting sources of energy — electricity generated from burning fossil fuels, for instance — and constitutes the largest environmental impact for most products. Mining and manufacturing materials for the newest iPhone, for example, represents roughly 83% of its contribution to the heattrapping emissions in the atmosphere throughout its life cycle, according to Apple’s manufacturing data. For a washing machine, it’s about 57%.
Add to that complex calculus the emissions from assembling the materials into a product, and then shipping it around the world.
“There are a lot of products that are not designed to last,” said Gay GordonByrne, executive director of the Repair Association, a group focused on right- torepair legislation. “But if you have enough options for repair, you can keep even the worst product going, if you can fix it.”
Manufacturers argue that their products are repairable, and that they are protecting consumers’ safety, privacy and security by restricting who does the repairs.
While these burdens on repair can make some gadgets seem unusable and, consequently, disposable, some argue that new repair mandates wouldn’t have a measurable effect on how often people replace their products.