On maintenance and sustainability...

Right to Repair

Repairing Our Relationship With Technology
In Rural America, Right-to-Repair Laws Are the Leading Edge of a Pushback Against Growing Corporate power

• In December 2022, NY passed the first law in the US around right to repair: The law makes New York the first state in the country to pass a consumer electronics right-to-repair law.
• The Act will require original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), or their authorized repair providers, to make parts and tools and diagnostic and repair information required for the maintenance and repair of “digital electronic equipment” available to independent repair providers and consumers, on “fair and reasonable terms”. However, the law only applies to products that are both manufactured for the first time as well as sold or used in the state for the first time on or after the law’s effective date of July 1, 2023 (thus exempting electronic products currently owned by consumers).
• The law ALSO excludes any “product sold under a specific business-to-government or business-to-business contract … not otherwise offered for sale directly by a retail seller,” This would affect school and hospital devices since they’re purchased under these type of bulk licenses.
• Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Google are all moving ahead with repair programs. Even if it sometimes means you get shipped a 79 pound (36kg) repair kit. (Apple shipped me a 79-pound iPhone repair kit to fix a 1.1-ounce battery - The Verge)
• People are also getting together to work on operating systems (open source) for these ‘obsolete’ devices (https://lineageos.org/)
• In the meantime there are schools in NYC that now have their own student-run repair centers (https://therestartproject.org/restart-at-school/).
• Then there’s the Restart Project which have “Restart Parties”—bringing people together to share skills and gain the confidence to open up their devices and technology.
• Colorado just passed it’s own bill that targets right to repair around wheelchairs and farm equipment (https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/25/colorados-new-right-to-repair-law-ensures-tractor-and-wheelchair-owners-get-the-parts-they-need/)
• The US now dumps between 300 million and 400 million electronic items per year, and less than 20% of that e-waste is recycled. (Note: Europe recycles around 50%)
• The value of the raw materials contained in the e-waste produced in the U.S. during 2019 was $7.49 billion.