Repair Is A Beacon Of Hope During Earth Week
Solving the climate crisis is hard. Repair is one way to get started. Also: Victory in Europe! EU Parliament passes right to repair directive. Also Colorado Senate passes repair bill.
Since the inception of Earth Day in 1970, we have learned more and more about how big a problem the climate crisis is. And not far after our holiday this week, we will reach Earth Overshoot Day. That’s correct—by July 25th, humans will have used up more resources in those seven months than the Earth can replenish.
It’s a bit overwhelming. Many describe the climate crisis as a hyperobject; something so sprawling, so interconnected and large, that we will never be able to fully appreciate what its full scope is, let alone how to solve it. Despite using big concepts to understand the problem, we don't have the full picture of the climate crisis (even the term climate crisis can't fully capture the full scope of the issues at hand). This can leave many of us unsure of where to do, unsure of how to fix a seemingly unsolvable problem.
Mainstream narratives of the environmental movement have drastically changed since 1970, with more alarming calls each year from groups like the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a report this month showing 62 million metric tons of e-waste being created in the last year. In response, we are now having conversations about planetary boundaries and circular economies, technical solutions are being devised, and policies are being created at the highest levels of government.
All the while, eco-anxiety and dread is on the rise as people begin to understand the role that these environmental crises will play in our lives. It's an unsettling topic to engage with—and hope can sometimes be hard to find.
Repair lets us start small in fixing the climate
Don't have money for a Tesla or a Prius? Live too far away from Exxon Mobil's CEO to throw fake blood on them? If you are looking for something tangible that you can do to reduce our collective environmental impact, you can start with repair.
For myself, this can look like anything from repairing (and deep cleaning) old clothing to disassembling my ear buds that had gotten gunked up over the past two years of use. Starting small is a great way to go, even though the lurking hyperobject in the room wants us to do everything all at once. It's okay to start small.
On a community level, repair is already taking off. We are seeing vibrant repair communities worldwide with repair cafés, fixit clinics, and tool libraries—all providing community and connection for people to directly curb waste and limit consumption. We know there are limits to repair, but it's an essential step to stop our collective patterns of consumption.
On the level of policy and government, corporations will need to be brought to heel, culture and economic structures will need to change, and none of that is exclusively within our control. We can however contribute to movements that make these changes, collectively.
The good (and bad) news is that individuals alone will not solve the climate crisis—communities will. As we have discussed before, right to repair intersects many other movements for environmental and economic justice—and something as simple as making a repair is a step in that direction.
EU Parliament Passes Right to Repair Directive
On Tuesday, the EU Parliament passed a long-awaited Directive on Common Rules Promoting the Repair of Goods, the equivalent of a “federal” law promoting repairability. EU member states have 2 years to adopt the measure into their own national laws. The Directive passed by a wide margin, with 584 votes in favor, 3 against and 14 abstentions. It is a huge leap forward for a right to repair in EU member nations. It includes legal requirements for manufacturers to extend product warranties by one year if a product is repaired while still under the initial warranty. The Directive also prohibits manufacturers from refusing to repair goods because they have been repaired previously by third parties, or from citing “economic reasons” to refuse a request by the consumer to repair an item.
The Directive also mandates that companies repair a range of common household products including TVs, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners and smartphones at a “reasonable” price, to help tilt the scales from “replace” to “repair.”
As with U.S. state right to repair laws, the EU Directive on Common Rules Promoting the Repair of Goods also addresses the availability of replacement parts and repair tools, mandating that manufacturers make spare parts and tools necessary for repairs available and outlawing contractual clauses or other practices designed to hinder repairs. That includes barring OEM practices to block the use of second hand and 3D printed parts by independent repair shops.
Advocates celebrated the news. “We applaud the rules on reasonable prices for original parts as well as the ban of software practices which prevent independent repair and the use of compatible and reused spare parts. This is a step in the right direction for affordable repair,” said the Right to Repair Europe Coalition, which represents more than 140 organizations across 24 European countries.
But the Directive is far from perfect. As the Right to Repair Europe points out in their analysis, the Directive applies only to a subset of product types that, while common, are just a tiny fraction of all goods sold to consumers and businesses. Also, it fails to define critical terms such as what constitutes a “fair” price for replacement parts. Critically, the scope of the law is limited to goods purchased by consumers. Business-to-business and industrial goods are exempted.
Stay tuned for more coverage of the EU’s new right to repair Directive!
Other News
Colorado senate passes right to repair bill. The Colorado legislature moved a step closer to passing a broad expansion of the state’s right to repair law. The state Senate on Wednesday passed HB 1121, a law that aims to extend the state's right-to-repair law to include consumer devices and business computing, building on the existing coverage for wheelchairs and farm equipment. As with the recently enacted right to repair bill in Oregon, the Colorado bill introduces a prohibition on parts pairing, where devices are designed to only work with manufacturer-approved parts. It now falls to the Colorado House to “concur” with the Senate’s bill before it can be sent to Governor Jared Polis for a signature. If signed into law, the bill will take effect on January 1, 2026.
New HMD Pulse smart phone touts repairability. In a sign that “repairability” may be transitioning from a legal requirement to a feature (see also: vehicle airbags), HMD is touting the repairability of its new Pulse smart phone as a key feature. “The easier it is to repair a device, the longer you can keep it – that’s better for the planet as well as your pocket,” the company says on its webpage announcing the new line of smartphones. The new HMD phones come with a repair hub, hosted by iFixit. “In our range of devices, you’ll find some Nokia smartphones and HMD smartphones designed and built to be easily repaired. So, with guides, tools, and genuine spare parts from iFixit, you’ll be able to make repairs at home,” the company said.
Bloomberg: Apple program forced recycler to shred 530,000 iPhones. Bloomberg reported last week on an investigation into Apple’s contract recycler GEEP, which said in court documents that it was required in its first few years to shred 530,000 iPhones, 25,000 iPads, and 19,000 Watches. The company was accused in a 2020 lawsuit of “failing to recycle” (that is: of repairing and reselling) nearly 100,000 of these Apple products. How dare they!!! :-P
Petition calls on Apple to make AirPods fixable. In honor of Earth Week, PIRG - the Public Interest Research Group - is calling on Apple to make AirPods repairable with replaceable batteries. The group has launched a petition for Apple to “…redesign AirPods with replaceable batteries and to commit to release only repairable products.” “No piece of electronics should be designed to die,” said Lucas Rockett Gutterman, U.S. PIRG Designed to Last campaign director.
New extended security updates from Microsoft will keep computers that run on Windows 10 out of the trash, but the next step is to “automatically [extend] the life of these computers” says Lucas Gutterman of U.S. PIRG. These updates, being directed for businesses and schools, will carry a cost and point to the overarching issue of ensuring electronic devices receive long-standing software support to ensure they can be used for as long as possible.
Microsoft has also submitted a patent to manage how it’s devices can use less energy. The new patent, titled sustainability-aware computing device behavior management, will analyze and detects the sustainability of your energy provider. From there, it will use information collected to decide on how to function and use energy. Will this be a fundamental shift for the company? Probably not, but it’s an interesting tweak using software.
iPhone recycling is not as perfect as Apple makes it seem, according to a new report from Forbes. Despite intense surveillance of employees who worked for recycling partners tasked with breaking down and scrapping devices for parts, an ongoing lawsuit is showing that despite the high praises companies give themselves for recycling programs, the reality is often far murkier. Not only were tens of thousands of devices functional, another article says “99,975 items, including iPhones that were reactivated in China instead of being destroyed.” Could these devices couldn’t have possibly been repaired instead of recycled?
Is Framework hinting at products beyond laptops? Founder Nirav Patel isn’t disclosing anything, but with solid performance from the company since its launch, there is potential for other products to be added to Framework’s repairable line. While other companies are cashing in on AI-frenzy, Framework is making repairable devices and a parts store to boot.
Asics launched a its new recyclable shoe, the Nimbus Murai, which will compete with other companies like On which release its “Cloudneo” recyclable shoe back in 2022. Why are marketers naming their recyclable shoes after clouds? Someone smarter than me can chime in below in the comments.
Podcast: Right to Repair Catches the Car
Companies for decades have been tightening their stranglehold on the information and the parts that let owners or independent repair shops fix things, but the pendulum is starting to swing back: New York, Minnesota, California, and Colorado have passed right to repair laws, and it’s on the legislative agenda in dozens of other states. In this podcast, Gay Gordon-Byrne, the Executive Director of The Repair Association, joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss this pivotal moment in the fight for consumers to have the right to products that are repairable and reusable.
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The age of eco-anxiety is upon us and climate-aware therapists are just a call away, meanwhile, the afterglow of climate disasters radiates traumatic psychiatric injuries throughout the globe. We need to get wise to what is happening and what we can do about it, so we don’t lose all our marbles. Consider this newsletter the clearing house for new, old, and emerging ideas to strengthen our emotional intelligence, psychological resilience, and mental health while we’re in this planetary pickle.
This concept flies in the face of our economic engine. It is Gross Domestic Product (GDP) not Gross Domestic Repairs. Materialism means buying new things. We love new and hate old. Growth means making new things and technology gives the latest product which is better than last years product. If you try and do something that involves circular economy and repair you realize what you are up against and the power and deep roots of our throw away consumer society.
I have spent the last 15 years developing a method for weatherizing and repair windows. It is very successful with people who love their old windows. It is a challenge to compete against the status quo of replacing old windows with new ones. The benefits of fixing old windows for local community, homeowners, and the climate are so much greater than replacements, but the message is so slow to get out and there is zero support from any of the corporate controlled governmental agencies and programs. Hope you can check out my website Opensash.com and see what can be done with out buying something new.