<story><title>Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair</title><url>https://reasonstobecheerful.world/europe-guarantee-right-to-repair-ifixit/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>I kind of wonder if we&amp;#x27;re looking at solving this the wrong way. Instead of mandating that manufacturers take specific steps to fix the waste problem, maybe it would be better to tag items at manufacture and charge device makers a percentage based on how long before it enters the waste stream.&lt;p&gt;Manufacturers could solve this by either:&lt;p&gt;- Making their things easy to repair&lt;p&gt;- Creating in house recycling programs&lt;p&gt;- Making equipment more durable and longer lasting&lt;p&gt;Any combination of the above. By picking &lt;i&gt;one specific&lt;/i&gt; way of reducing waste, we are ignoring other factors. Few people care to repair Android phones because you can&amp;#x27;t upgrade the OS after 2 years regardless. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter if the hardware is repairable, the device is greatly devalued at that point. Like wise, if it&amp;#x27;s super expensive to repair an iPhone, people aren&amp;#x27;t going to bother and will just replace it.&lt;p&gt;By focusing on the end result -&amp;gt; Devices entering the waste stream &amp;lt;- the manufacturers are responsible for ensuring hardware gets responsibly recycled, repaired, or just doesn&amp;#x27;t break. Obviously, to make this work the cost per device entering the stream would have to be significant compared to the cost of the device.&lt;p&gt;Also, the cost should be the responsibility of the maker. Currently in some place in the US, consumers pay the cost to dispose of&amp;#x2F; recycle televisions. The result is we end up with TVs on the side of the road. Often on the way away from the dump where people refuse to pay the disposal fee then toss the TV out the door on the way home.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stretchcat</author><text>&amp;gt; 1) Making their things easy to repair. 2) Creating in house recycling programs. 3) Making equipment more durable and longer lasting&lt;p&gt;The first and third should not be on equal footing with the second.  &lt;i&gt;Reduce, Reuse, Recycle&lt;/i&gt; is meant to be applied &lt;i&gt;in that order.&lt;/i&gt;  Many environmental crimes can be hidden in a recycling program.  Many products are not truly recyclable, but tell consumers they are.  Sometimes they are only partially recyclable, or other times the recycling is technically possible but economically infeasible and consequently doesn&amp;#x27;t actually happen.  Corporations know this and have promoted recycling to equal footing as reuse and reduction.  They would rather people consume more and casually throw broken products into their recycling bin, naively believing they&amp;#x27;re being responsible consumers.</text></comment>
<story><title>Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair</title><url>https://reasonstobecheerful.world/europe-guarantee-right-to-repair-ifixit/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>I kind of wonder if we&amp;#x27;re looking at solving this the wrong way. Instead of mandating that manufacturers take specific steps to fix the waste problem, maybe it would be better to tag items at manufacture and charge device makers a percentage based on how long before it enters the waste stream.&lt;p&gt;Manufacturers could solve this by either:&lt;p&gt;- Making their things easy to repair&lt;p&gt;- Creating in house recycling programs&lt;p&gt;- Making equipment more durable and longer lasting&lt;p&gt;Any combination of the above. By picking &lt;i&gt;one specific&lt;/i&gt; way of reducing waste, we are ignoring other factors. Few people care to repair Android phones because you can&amp;#x27;t upgrade the OS after 2 years regardless. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter if the hardware is repairable, the device is greatly devalued at that point. Like wise, if it&amp;#x27;s super expensive to repair an iPhone, people aren&amp;#x27;t going to bother and will just replace it.&lt;p&gt;By focusing on the end result -&amp;gt; Devices entering the waste stream &amp;lt;- the manufacturers are responsible for ensuring hardware gets responsibly recycled, repaired, or just doesn&amp;#x27;t break. Obviously, to make this work the cost per device entering the stream would have to be significant compared to the cost of the device.&lt;p&gt;Also, the cost should be the responsibility of the maker. Currently in some place in the US, consumers pay the cost to dispose of&amp;#x2F; recycle televisions. The result is we end up with TVs on the side of the road. Often on the way away from the dump where people refuse to pay the disposal fee then toss the TV out the door on the way home.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aembleton</author><text>Making the producers responsible for the disposal might be the best way. I don&amp;#x27;t exactly know how it would be implemented but I&amp;#x27;d like to see it for packaging too.&lt;p&gt;Local authorities should be able to collect up all Mcdonalds packaging and hand it back to them. Make them responsible for its disposal. Then they will be incentivised to reduce the amount of packaging that they produce.</text></comment>