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Why You Should Have the Right to Repair Your Own Devices

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Key Takeaways

• The growing movement to force manufacturers to let users repair their own gadgets got a recent boost from the White House. 
• Experts say that many manufacturers make repairing devices intentionally difficult. 
• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently endorsed the right-to-repair movement.

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The DIY gadget repair movement is growing, thanks to some help from President Biden. 

Last week, the White House issued an executive order aimed at anti-competitive practices . It includes a provision that would give you the right to repair your own cell phones and other devices. Many manufacturers make repairing devices difficult. Experts say that such measures are unfair to users. 

"When you buy a product, you own it, so this means you should be able to do with it what you want," Lauren Benton, the managing director of Back Market , a marketplace for refurbished electronics, told Lifewire in an email interview. "But, this isn’t always the case with our expensive cell phones and laptops and other electronic devices today."

Locked Down?

Tech companies impose restrictions on self and third-party repairs, "making repairs more costly and time-consuming, such as by restricting the distribution of parts, diagnostics, and repair tools," the White House said in a statement announcing the executive order. 

The order encourages the Federal Trade Commission "to issue rules against anti-competitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing DIY repairs of your own devices and equipment."

Device manufacturers often make it hard to find parts and repair information, Benton said. Apple uses a proprietary screw that makes it difficult to open the iPhone, for example. Some manufacturers say they are protecting customers from hurting themselves or that their repair manual is proprietary information. 

"This just does not make sense and only serves the interests of the manufacturers who make more money from us when we have to go back to them for a repair or to replace the non-working item," Benton said. "The right to repair is about giving users the freedom to own and operate the items they buy and is an essential element to enabling a robust market for refurbished electronics."

Growing DIY Movement

The right to repair movement is flourishing around the world. This year, the French government began requiring tech manufacturers to list a repairability score on items like cell phones and laptops. In the US, more than a dozen states are considering right-to-repair legislation .

Users are embracing the movement as well. The company CGS recently conducted a study that found that 71% of consumers were fixing items on their own, partly resulting from the pandemic, but also because of the inconvenience of returning an item for repair. 

"Consumers have become much more aware of ecological damage done by throwing away old or damaged goods that could have been repaired," Steven Petruk, a division president at CGS, told Lifewire in an email interview. "Yet, more than 60% said that they threw away a household appliance in the past year." 

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently endorsed the right-to-repair movement. In a post to the YouTube channel of Louis Rossmann, a right-to-repair advocate, Wozniak said that he was "totally supportive" of the cause.

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Helpful or Harmful?

But not everyone is praising the president’s order. Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a news release that the White House is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

"Our sector is strong and growing, and our people are benefiting," he added. "Unfortunately, there are those who want to erode our competitive advantage with archaic tax policies. They threaten to undo our progress by undermining free markets and are premised on the false notion that our workers are not positioned for success."

Biden’s order could lead to an FTC rule that gadget manufacturers can’t enforce warranties that limit where gadgets can be serviced, Daniel Crane, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School specializing in antitrust law, told Lifewire in an email interview. 

"That might lead to lower prices for consumers," he added. "But it also could mean that consumers would start taking their equipment to third-party servicers that don't fully understand the technology or have full access to source code or other aspects of the manufacturer's 'secret sauce,' and therefore harm the equipment."

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Fighting for the Right to Repair Electronic Devices

This fight shouldn’t be necessary. But the advent of fast electronics, the risk of prison terms for trying to extend computers’ lives , and the deterioration of sustainable practices over the last few decades has led to the inevitable: a global movement asking for the right to repair. 

In the 21st century, repairing your electronic device has become a revolutionary act; by defying manufacturers who want you to endlessly buy the deliberately short-lived products for which they take no responsibility, it dares to go against the consumerist flow. 

When my Kindle’s battery died, I went to a high street electronics store to buy a new battery and, since I lack the tools, to see whether they could replace it. The shop assistant smiling told me this was impossible because the battery is built in, so all I could do was buy a new device. Except for the battery, there was nothing wrong with the ebook. I liked it, and didn’t need an upgraded, lighter, softer one. He wasn’t in the least bothered, surprised, or apologetic about this situation. 

That was my first encounter with electronic gadgets’ premeditatedly short life, and with the popular practice of chucking those with no option of repair. An adjacent practice is the devaluing of repair through a seemingly fair process: yes, we can replace the broken part in the device… but it’s going to cost you as much as getting a new device. This is illustrated in this video about iPod’s dirty secret – by no means an isolated example. 👀

Wear and tear is inevitable, but all too often gadgets’ demise (or apparent demise) is caused by planned obsolescence . A strategy to sell more stuff – which is only speeding up – shouldn’t come as a surprise within economies built on limitless growth.

None of this seems right. Sure, if financial profit is the ultimate goal, this could be justified – but that’s a dynamic that’s fundamentally divorced from the reality of a finite planet.

Can we do something about this?

Definitely. Maintain, repair, recycle.

We are consumers. Otherwise, nobody would sell anything, right? Sure, they can force products and adherence to advances in technology onto us. No smartphone? No COVID app. And so on. You get the picture.

The absurdity of these wasteful practices is exacerbated by contemporary realities of ecological collapse, deterioration of workers’ rights, and slavery in the supply chains. Yet ‘no repair’ is becoming normalised. Chucking gadgets yearly (or even more frequently) shouldn’t be normal, despite the temptation to purchase a new, improved model. That’s just another practise designed to tempt us into buying more often: something new added every year to justify the irrelevance of the previous model.

This relatively new approach to buying has been successfully introduced into our over-consumerist society by massive corporations – which, in many cases, became massive by driving global round-the-clock purchasing.

Because of their moderate prices and endless upgrades, many people don’t bother to prolong their functionality. But, we can start to do something about this by being good stewards of our gadgets. 

Maintenance 

Maintenance might sound like common sense: prolong the life of beloved gadgets by not chucking them about or dropping them in water, and generally behaving like they aren’t just conveniences to take for granted. And not just because we pay money for our gadgets; we must be aware of the effort and unseen costs underpinning such products.

We think in terms of cheap or expensive, but fail to assess true value. The cost of electronics rarely mirrors reality.

Many people around the world work on these devices: mining the necessary minerals, building them, shipping them, selling them. We might understand that superficial price tag better if we fully appreciated the true cost: workers underpaid throughout the supply chain; the conflict minerals ; the toxins unleashed in land and water, poisoning others’ livelihoods.

I’ve managed to maintain my old electronic devices. Some are fully functional, but too slow these days. Like my Chromebook (more than eight years old) – still in use for basic work, against all the odds, and in spite of the consumerist machinery that would have chucked it on the e-waste pile five years ago. Same with my cheap Kubik MP3 player (more than 10 years old): magically still playing music despite its many display errors and tired buttons. On the plus side, it looks unappealing to pickpockets, and no marketeers are counting my minutes and listing my moods.

But our responsibility for maintenance shouldn’t be the final word about what we own and use. Repair should be on the cards too – which is where producers have to want to prolong products’ lives just as much as their owners do. 

Repair prolongs gadgets’ functionality – which saves money, but also minimises e-waste: a global ecological catastrophe rarely discussed by the mass media. There’s not much accountability on the part of manufacturers, and little regulation regarding proper disposal.

Nothing lasts forever, but once upon a time electronics were built to last longer, same as furniture, buildings, and clothes. My 94-year-old grandma has a functional radio from the 1950s, and a fridge from 1987. This longevity may result from extreme maintenance and minimal use, but also from good quality, and the network of small independent repair businesses which thrived until only a few decades ago. 

Those of a certain age may still remember the many neighbourhood repair shops buzzing with work, people, and a feeling of community. Most are now gone. How are they supposed to repair a phone when the company disallows anyone but themselves from doing it, and even then, only when under warranty?

With a little help from the internet, communities, and dedicated campaigners, repairs are still possible, even in the no-repair 21st century. Here are some useful pointers to give you hope and practical advice:

Right to Repair

Complacency has gone too far, so common sense needed a push. Hence, Right to Repair , which refers mainly to legislation making it easier for consumers to repair their gadgets, from smartphones to game consoles, and harder for manufacturers to create unsustainable products.

In Europe, Right to Repair is also a coalition of organisations based in several countries which represent community repair groups, social economy actors, self-repair, and any citizen who would like to advocate for a universal right to repair.

Follow or join them and you’ll find lots of up to date information about where you can repair, how you can join the fight, what petitions you can sign, and which skills you can add to the cause. 

Public pressure and the work of such advocacy organisations and coalitions has led to victories like these EU ‘right to repair’ rules for appliances , which come into force next year, meaning firms will have to make appliances longer-lasting, and supply spare parts for machines for up to 10 years.

In the US, you can join the Digital Right to Repair Coalition (or the Repair Association) and other similar organisations.

These are just a few examples. The repair revolution is expanding exponentially, despite powerful corporations’ attempts to smother it. 

Restart Project

Restart Project is a people-powered charity and social enterprise born in 2013 out of the frustration with “the throwaway, consumerist model of electronics that we’ve been sold, and the growing mountain of e-waste that it’s leaving behind”; though best known for its repair parties, it is also knee-deep in changing policy regarding the right to repair.

Its restart parties take place in various locations in the UK – usually at the weekend, so more people can attend – and, with branches on three continents (over sixty groups in twelve countries), it just keeps expanding. 

How does it work?

1. Hold onto your devices. Don’t recycle them yet, even if keeping them feels pointless. 

2. Join a repair party close to your home and take the gadgets with you. 

3. A volunteer specialist will greet you and have a look at them. Explain the problem, and they’ll tell you whether there’s life in the devices yet. 

4. If nothing can be done on the spot, they’ll ask you to buy some parts, then bring them to the next repair party to get it fixed. If it’s a lost cause, it may be good to donate the functional parts to those who need them. 

Check out the Restart Project website to see smiley faces holding onto their freshly fixed toasters, smartphones, and vacuum cleaners. 

👉 Remember: You can share your skills too, not just broken gadgets.

Not only an online compendium of repair guides “for every thing, written by everyone”, iFIXit is also an online community. Like many similar activities, in these days of physical distancing, imagine repair parties moved online. 

This wiki-based site teaches people how to fix almost anything. Anyone can create a repair manual for a device, or edit the existing set of manuals to improve them. At its core, its goal is to empower individuals to share their technical knowledge with the rest of the world.

Independent repair shops

Last, but not least, look out for the traditional repair shops still magically holding out. They’re usually tiny, easy-to-miss doors on the high street – often family-run businesses that have somehow survived the real estate and corporate urban offensive. Sometimes they’re mentioned as quirky hidden gems in glossy magazines, satisfying tourists’ needs for the ‘local’ and ‘authentic’, while forgetting ‘essential’ and ‘practical’.

After maintenance and repair comes the recycling of our devices. E-waste is “ world’s fastest-growing solid-waste stream ” and also the most toxic to our health. In the US, 70 percent of heavy metals and toxic substances in landfills come from e-waste ; recycling of electrical devices must be taken seriously. 

But they’re not potato peels, so where to throw gadgets away? The rubbish bin? The recycling bin? Or a special collecting bin for electronics, the kind sometimes found in cities?

Businesses like Electronic Recyclers International (“the largest fully integrated IT & Electronics Asset Disposition (ITAD) provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States”) charge clients to collect their electronic devices and securely wipe their data. Sometimes they refurbish and resell devices. It’s big business, but their environmentally and socially responsible dismantling of electronic waste covers only a tiny fraction of global and even local e-waste.

More electronics stores are taking back devices to be recycled, and some mobile companies might give you points or even cash in exchange for your old phone.

It may seem like a hassle to contact someone to arrange pick-up of your device, or to go to a specific location (as in some cities) to chuck unrepairable devices into special boxes in the street. Contact your local authority. They should know what recycling options are available in your neighborhood. You can also ask whether your local repair shop needs them for parts. 

Recycling resources in the UK

The Recycle Your Electricals Campaign can help locate electrical reuse and recycling centres near you with this electronics recycling locator . Browse their website for more useful information about recycling, tips for getting old electronics fixed, and the importance of donating them.

In conclusion

We can all:

✔️ Prolong the lives of our devices through good maintenance – in spite of this Kurt Vonnegut quote: “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” 

✔️ Take our broken devices to a repair party or an independent repair shop, if repair through the manufacturer isn’t possible, or too expensive.

✔️ Maintain, repair, reuse, recycle, and only buy if we must, ensuring to purchase ethical products that enable repair.

✔️ Campaign for fair supply chains and sustainable business models.

✔️ Join the many online and offline communities to share our repairing skills.

▪️ The future of technology is endangered by element scarcity ; repairing and recycling is increasingly necessary.

▪️ Your gadget contains many valuable elements. So many, Japan is making the 2020 Olympic medals from discarded smartphones .

▪️ Start asking questions and demand accountability. Things don’t have to be this way. You are a consumer and, believe it or not, that means you have power to help change this situation.

Further reading ⤵️

‘The Human Cost of Our Phones’

‘The Slavery Supported by That Device in Your Pocket’

‘Smartphone Savvy: How to Buy a New Mobile Without It Costing the Earth’

‘What Are “Right to Repair” Laws, and What Do They Mean for You?’

‘We Need Right-to-Repair Laws Now More than Ever’

Featured image by Dan-Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash

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What Is the Right to Repair and Why Should You Care?

When old technology broke, you could fix yourself. If that failed, you could find a repair shop. With newer products, those options are disappearing. Let's talk about the importance of the Right to Repair.

Key Takeaways

• Companies intentionally prevent us from fixing our own devices and limit access to repair information, raising questions about true ownership and control over our purchases.
• The right to repair is the ability to fix technology ourselves or have someone other than the manufacturer do it. It should be a given if we own something.
• Tech companies and manufacturers oppose right to repair laws as it threatens their profits, but there have been victories in the movement, such as agreements providing access to diagnostic tools and repair information for independent garages and retailers.

When old technology broke, you could fix it yourself or get someone down the road to do it for you. This got the job done cheaper than going straight to the manufacturer. But it is now often impossible to fix our own stuff.

This change was not accidental. Companies deliberately design products to prevent us from finding replacement parts and don't even make information available to repair shops. In doing so, they've called into question whether we truly own our purchases at all.

In response, a growing number of people are demanding a change. They are insisting that our right to repair be enshrined in law.

What Is the Right to Repair?

This is the right to fix technology yourself or have someone other than the manufacturer do the work for you. The right-to-repair concept isn't listed in the US Bill of Rights, but that doesn't make its existence seem like any less of a given. If you buy something, it's yours. If it's yours, you should be able to fix it.

This seems obvious, but take a look at the things in your home. Can you fix the device you're reading this on? What about the game console under your TV? If your smart speaker suffered from a physical defect, do you have any options besides asking for a refund or sending it back for repairs? Are you aware of a repair shop you could send it to instead?

Why Do We Need Right to Repair Laws?

Over the past century, companies across any number of industries have designed products to become obsolete , known as planned obsolescence, while some started making proprietary parts to keep owners from extending how long a product lasts. This tactic offered a way to grow profits by increasing the number of times consumers needed to buy the same product throughout their lives.

Today, many smartphones and tablets are designed to prevent you from cracking them open. Apple went so far as to create a special screw to prevent consumers and repair shops from getting inside.

Being the only one who can make repairs provides a company with a monopoly, so they can charge as much as they want for replacements. Most people won't want to pay that price and opt to buy a new one instead. Either way, the manufacturer makes more money.

This isn't just a consumer tech problem. Farmers can have to haul a tractor hundreds of miles to get a manufacturer to fix the onboard computer, which is why farmers became early right-to-repair advocates, as Vice reported in 2017 . That's a painful loss of time and labor. The struggle is such that a black market of John Deere parts formed, according to Road and Track , connecting Nebraska farmers with counterparts in Eastern Europe to buy unlocked tractor firmware.

Rural states like Nebraska are especially hard hit by the status quo. Authorized retailers tend to be in major urban areas. Apple's list of brick-and-mortar stores shows only one in all of Nebraska. Only a handful of authorized repair shops exist elsewhere in the state.

Do Companies Oppose Right to Repair Laws?

In 2016, tech companies such as Apple successfully blocked a right-to-repair bill in New York before the measure could come to a vote, as HuffPost reported . BuzzFeed reported that in Nebraska, companies opposed the proposed Adopt the Fair Repair Act, with Apple's representative arguing that such a law would make the state a "Mecca for bad actors." Similar bills have failed in Wyoming, Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois, Tennessee, and Massachusetts.

Apple is hardly working alone. The various tech industry groups taking the company's side in opposing Nebraska's right-to-repair bill represent Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, Nintendo, and others.

For corporations, this is a matter of increasing profits. For repair shops, this is an issue of being able to stay in business (and being relevant). For people in the healthcare industry, this can be a matter of life or death.

Right to Repair Victories

According to Automotive News , in 2014, right-to-repair advocates and trade groups representing automakers agreed to a deal providing independent garages and retailers with the same diagnostic tools that manufacturers give their franchised dealers.

More recently, while smartphones remain difficult to fix, Apple iPhones are less looked down on than they once were. Apple does now offer an Apple self-repair kit for certain models. And that's because momentum on the issue started to shift further in favor of the right-to-repair movement.

In 2021, within his first year in office, US President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order directing the Federal Trade Commission to, among other things, target "unfair anti-competitive restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items, such as the restrictions imposed by powerful manufacturers that prevent farmers from repairing their own equipment."

In 2022, the New York state legislature passed the Digital Fair Repair Act , requiring original equipment manufacturers who do business within the state to provide diagnostic and repair information, though some amendments containing loopholes entered the bill before becoming law. In 2023, Minnesota passed a law with the same name, which made it through without such loopholes.

Those farmers facing off against John Deere? In 2023, the American Farm Bureau Federation and John Deere announced an agreement giving farmers access to tools and information needed to fix their equipment. A few months later, according to Reuters , Colorado became the first state to pass a law mandating companies like John Deere to provide information and access needed to fix their own equipment. A year earlier, Colorado passed a law requiring people to be permitted to repair their own wheelchairs.

What Can You Do to Support the Right to Repair?

You can take steps to support the right-to-repair movement and keep the momentum building.

• Pressure your representatives to propose and support right to repair bills where you live. Since there aren't many alternatives available, tech companies can continue monopolistic practices unless they're legally barred from doing so. This is an issue where it's difficult to vote with our dollar, though that doesn't mean we shouldn't make an effort however we can.
• Avoid the shiny and new. The idea of a smart home may sound nice, but unless you're MacGyvering a system yourself, there's a good chance you're filling your house with non-repairable tech. On laptops and tablets, sleek often means you're not fixing it yourself.
• Look for screws. If you can open a device using readily available tools, that's a sign the manufacturer intends for other people to operate on the hardware. That person may need to be an expert, but at least the option exists.
• Consider free and open-source software. This community considers the ability to fix and edit your own software to be a fundamental right. Developers also strive to support old hardware indefinitely, unlike commercial operating systems that only prioritize the latest generations of hardware. You can run Linux on an old computer that a Windows technician would say is in dire need of repair.
• Avoid specialized software. As a writer, I could buy a MacBook and get access to an abundance of quirky tools. Alternatively, I can learn how to write in Markdown and become as productive on a Raspberry Pi with a keyboard and monitor as I would on a $2,400 laptop. Then I have the option not to give my money to companies actively trying to destroy my right to repair.
• Become acquainted with iFixit . This community-supported site shows if your latest splurge is repairable.

Long-term, we need a circular economy that encourages everyone to get as much as possible from the resources we consume. Repairing and reusing our gadgets is a big part of making this happen.

Can We Repair This Right?

We increasingly live in a world where we own neither our data nor the apps that access those files. It's not even a given that we can use the products we buy in the way that we wish. At the very least, we should be able to fix broken devices and other hardware.

But sadly, repairing our gadgets is no longer a given. If we want this situation to change, we have to demand as much from companies using our wallets and the law. It also helps to understand some of the arguments against designing devices to be repairable.

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Consumer electronics have changed a lot in 20 years – systems for managing e-waste aren’t keeping up

Associate Professor of Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology

Postdoctoral associate, Yale University

Disclosure statement

Callie Babbitt receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the Consumer Technology Association, and the Staples Sustainable Innovation Lab.

Shahana Althaf received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Consumer Technology Association, and the Staples Sustainable Innovation Lab.

Rochester Institute of Technology provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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It’s hard to imagine navigating modern life without a mobile phone in hand. Computers, tablets and smartphones have transformed how we communicate, work, learn, share news and entertain ourselves. They became even more essential when the COVID-19 pandemic moved classes, meetings and social connections online.

But few people realize that our reliance on electronics comes with steep environmental costs, from mining minerals to disposing of used devices. Consumers can’t resist faster products with more storage and better cameras, but constant upgrades have created a growing global waste challenge . In 2019 alone, people discarded 53 million metric tons of electronic waste .

In our work as sustainability researchers , we study how consumer behavior and technological innovations influence the products that people buy, how long they keep them and how these items are reused or recycled .

Our research shows that while e-waste is rising globally, it’s declining in the U.S. But some innovations that are slimming down the e-waste stream are also making products harder to repair and recycle.

Recycling used electronics

Thirty years of data show why the volume of e-waste in the U.S. is decreasing. New products are lighter and more compact than past offerings . Smartphones and laptops have edged out desktop computers. Televisions with thin, flat screens have displaced bulkier cathode-ray tubes , and streaming services are doing the job that once required standalone MP3, DVD and Blu-ray players. U.S. households now produce about 10% less electronic waste by weight than they did at their peak in 2015.

The bad news is that only about 35% of U.S. e-waste is recycled . Consumers often don’t know where to recycle discarded products. If electronic devices decompose in landfills, hazardous compounds can leach into groundwater, including lead used in older circuit boards, mercury found in early LCD screens and flame retardants in plastics. This process poses health risks to people and wildlife.

There’s a clear need to recycle e-waste, both to protect public health and to recover valuable metals. Electronics contain rare minerals and precious metals mined in socially and ecologically vulnerable parts of the world . Reuse and recycling can reduce demand for “ conflict minerals ” and create new jobs and revenue streams .

But it’s not a simple process. Disassembling electronics for repair or material recovery is expensive and labor-intensive.

Some recycling companies have illegally stockpiled or abandoned e-waste. One Denver warehouse was called “ an environmental disaster ” when 8,000 tons of lead-filled tubes from old TVs were discovered there in 2013.

The U.S. exports up to 40% of its e-waste . Some goes to regions such as Southeast Asia that have little environmental oversight and few measures to protect workers who repair or recycle electronics.

Disassembling products and assembling data

Health and environmental risks have prompted 25 U.S. states and the District of Columbia to enact e-waste recycling laws . Some of these measures ban landfilling electronics, while others require manufacturers to support recycling efforts. All of them target large products, like old cathode-ray tube TVs, which contain up to 4 pounds of lead.

We wanted to know whether these laws, adopted from 2003 to 2011, can keep up with the current generation of electronic products. To find out, we needed a better estimate of how much e-waste the U.S. now produces.

We mapped sales of electronic products from the 1950s to the present, using data from industry reports, government sources and consumer surveys. Then we disassembled almost 100 devices , from obsolete VCRs to today’s smartphones and fitness trackers, to weigh and measure the materials they contained.

We created a computer model to analyze the data , producing one of the most detailed accounts of U.S. electronic product consumption and discards currently available.

E-waste is leaner, but not necessarily greener

The big surprise from our research was that U.S. households are producing less e-waste , thanks to compact product designs and digital innovation. For example, a smartphone serves as an all-in-one phone, camera, MP3 player and portable navigation system. Flat-panel TVs are about 50% lighter than large-tube TVs and don’t contain any lead.

But not all innovations have been beneficial. To make lightweight products, manufacturers miniaturized components and glued parts together, making it harder to repair devices and more expensive to recycle them. Lithium-ion batteries pose another problem: They are hard to detect and remove, and they can spark disastrous fires during transportation or recycling.

Popular features that consumers love – speed, sharp images, responsive touch screens and long battery life – rely on metals like cobalt, indium and rare-earth elements that require immense energy and expense to mine. Commercial recycling technology cannot yet recover them profitably, although innovations are starting to emerge.

Reenvisioning waste as a resource

We believe solving these challenges requires a proactive approach that treats digital discards as resources, not waste. Gold, silver, palladium and other valuable materials are now more concentrated in e-waste than in natural ores in the ground.

“ Urban mining ,” in the form of recycling e-waste, could replace the need to dig up scarce metals, reducing environmental damage. It would also reduce U.S. dependence on minerals imported from other countries .

Government, industry and consumers all have roles to play. Progress will require designing products that are easier to repair and reuse, and persuading consumers to keep their devices longer .

We also see a need for responsive e-waste laws in place of today’s dated patchwork of state regulations. Establishing convenient , certified recycling locations can keep more electronics out of landfills. With retooled operations, recyclers can recover more valuable materials from the e-waste stream. Steps like these can help balance our reliance on electronic devices with systems that better protect human health and the environment.

[ Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter .]

• Smartphones
• Electronics
• Electronic waste
• Mercury (pollution)
• Recyclables
• Lead pollution
• Lithium-ion batteries
• Gold recycling
• E-waste recycling

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The Importance of Repair and Maintenance for Mental Wellbeing

Article by: Charlie Sorrel @mistercharlie

• May 12, 2020
• Filed under: Fixers

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Repair and maintenance aren’t just a great way to save money and lessen your environmental impact. Just the act of fixing things up, however big or small a project, may also be good for your mental wellbeing.

We’re attracted by the latest gadgets, and we tend to see old, worn objects as diminished, broken, and undesirable. But we don’t always know what’s best for us. The act of maintenance itself can calm you, give a sense of achievement, and save you money for more important things.

The Zen of Repair and Maintenance

Repair is also satisfying in a way that buying new will never be. The perceived shine of a new toy wears off almost immediately, but when you repair something, you not only get the enjoyment of problem solving, you get a sense of satisfaction every time you use it. I recently resurrected a 2008 Unibody MacBook with a new SSD , a little soldering to repair the subwoofer cable I clumsily yanked off the circuit board, and some fresh skateboard stickers. Using it is like slipping into a favorite pair of slippers. I’m still tempted by the newest MacBook Air , but it’s a weak impulse, especially in today’s uncertain financial climate.

Anyone who has successfully completed a hard-drive swap, battery upgrade , or other internal computer repair will know that nervous feeling of excitement when the machine boots successfully for the first time. It’s a rush, and you feel good about it for days afterwards.

Kintsugi: The Dignity of Damaged Goods

We tend to view the scars and dents on our possessions as blemishes and defects. But what if we could see them as badges of experience, a history displayed on the surface of the object? The Japanese art of Kintsugi uses gold dust mixed with lacquer to repair broken pottery. 

The result is often more beautiful than the unblemished original, with a network of gold (or silver, or platinum) crazing. The cracks and splits are not hidden, but highlighted. Now, this won’t work for the cracked screen of an iPhone, but the general principle—that repairs are badges of honor—is a good one to adopt. This is taken to the extreme in the practice of “relic-ing” brand new guitars to make them look like they’ve been through a world tour. The results often look like they’ve been left out in the yard for decades, but the prices are crazy. A “heavy relic” model from Fender goes for almost $4,000 . How’s that for valuing wear and tear?

You can also investigate this mindset by darning the rips and tears in favorite clothes , deploying tasteful stickers or decals to cover up blemishes on bikes or laptops, or making your own pottery repairs with a rather neat Kintsugi kit .

Seeing Maintenance as Productivity

In her book about resisting the attention economy , How to Do Nothing , artist and writer Jenny Odell talks about the importance of “maintenance as productivity.”

“Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new,” she says, “whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.” Odell describes the Morcom Amphitheatre of Roses in Oakland, California, a quiet space maintained by volunteers, as proof of this societal fallacy.

“Their presence is a reminder that the Rose Garden is beautiful in part because it is cared for, that effort must be put in.”

In Odell’s view, maintenance and repair are essential to fighting the mind-alterting forces of social media and the hyper-capitalist modern world. They’re also a practical way to reclaim mental space, and to reconnect with the people around us.

Repair and Maintenance as Meditation

Knitting might be the closest thing to a crafty alternative to meditation. When I start knitting, it calms my mind, and I feel my breathing slow, almost immediately. It’s absurdly effective as a way to relax.

But there are other tasks that can be equally calming, as long as you don’t try to rush through them. Try polishing leather shoes, properly —removing the laces and taking it slow. Once a month you can do the whole family’s shoes. It’s surprisingly satisfying.

Or you could finally get around to patching some clothes . Do you have a stack of old pants, sweaters and shirts with holes in the knees or elbows? Patch them, maybe using one item of clothing as the donor to provide the patches. You can also use offcuts to make protective face masks .

Spend money on experiences, not things

There’s one less-obvious, if immediately apparent, psychological benefit to making do and mending instead of buying new: you will have money to spare. You’ll probably feel better about the lesser sum you spent to fix something, too. A 2012 study from the University of California concluded that you’ll be happier if you spend your money on experiences instead of things, both before and after.

The study, led by Cornell psychology professor Thomas Gilovich, found that waiting for material purchases can lead to impatience and frustration, whereas anticipating an experience can be as enjoyable as the experience itself. Looking back on these experiences makes us happier than looking back on possessions.

Repairing and maintaining what you have frees up money for more rewarding things, and makes you happier in both the long and short term. Repairing is itself an experience, one you can look back on with satisfaction, and likely some pride.

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Home — Essay Samples — Information Science and Technology — Gadgets — The Reasons Why Expensive Gadgets Are Overshadowing Basic Needs

The Reasons Why Expensive Gadgets Are Overshadowing Basic Needs

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Published: Apr 11, 2019

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• The objective content, which is the object of the report.
• The personal revelation, which is the subjective content of a report
• The appeal, which is the ability to animate others.
• The association that which one thinks of the other one and the position with regards to him.

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The Joys of Fixing Your Own Stuff

With jobs lost and stores closed, people are now reviving their old gadgets on their own.

By Shira Ovide

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

Whether by necessity or choice, lots of us are adopting acts of frugal self-reliance like baking our own bread, teaching our own children — and fixing our own busted iPhone screens.

Since the pandemic began, people have been flooding iFixit , an online store for repair parts and instructional guides, to get help fixing items like phones, laptops, appliances and video game consoles . For as little as a few dollars and some patience, people are reviving their home gadgets and gear.

Kyle Wiens, iFixit’s chief executive, said more people have become inclined to fix their own gadgets because of financial hardship, lack of access to repair shops and boredom. But he said he believed there’s also something bigger at work here.

This has become a moment to make more from what we have — because we must, and also because we’re more conscious of what we buy and do. You can see that in tales of people bartering , building vegetable gardens and regrowing scallions from scraps. I hope some of this sticks around.

Several years ago, I tricked a colleague at The Wall Street Journal — for the sake of journalism — to repair my busted TV set . When he opened the back of the television in the office and broke out a soldering iron, everyone gave him a wide berth. I’m happy to say the repair was quick, cheap and free from mishap. The TV is still in my living room.

That repair changed how I think about the vitality of old stuff . So too have horror stories about even recycled electronics gear catching fire or winding up as dangerous waste in foreign dumps .

If we bought less and kept what we have alive for longer, we’d save money, be gentler on the planet and learn how resourceful we are.

Wiens has three suggestions to help us budding D.I.Y. types. First, that thing you worry is too complicated and dangerous to fix yourself probably isn’t.

“Our message is, give yourself a chance,” Wiens said. (There are limits. Wiens said some products, like old-fashioned television sets, are actually dangerous to fix. If your TV is one with a bulging back end rather than a flat screen, skip it.)

Second, Wiens said, when we buy a new product, we can consider how long it might last and how easy it would be to repair. Wiens suggested checking online for parts and repair manuals of older versions of the product. That’s a sign that the manufacturers have longevity in mind.

We may also want to consider that some products are destined to die young and are unfixable, including — sorry, everyone — many popular wireless headphones .

And third, Wiens said we can push for “ right to repair” laws that would make it easier to get information, tools and parts to fix our own stuff.

This shouldn’t be necessary, but it is because some products are D.I.Y.-proof. Fixing the home button on some iPhones, for example, requires software that only Apple has. (Apple says this preserves the safety and integrity of our iPhones.)

I’m never going to stop buying new stuff. But like our sudden mania for baking , D.I.Y. repairs show how resourceful we can be. “It’s an opportunity to improve yourself and learn new skills,” Wiens said.

Get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday; please sign up here .

Here’s help with a common D.I.Y. challenge

Earlier this month I asked you to send in your gadget fix-it questions. Many of you wrote in asking for help reviving old and slow laptops. Andrew Cunningham from the Wirecutter , a product recommendation site owned by The Times, has this advice:

Sometimes when an old laptop is running slowly, it’s because of unnecessary apps or other old cruft that has built up over years of use. You could use a free app like Malwarebytes to make sure that adware and viruses aren’t the reasons your laptop is running slowwwwly.

But an even better option is to save the documents and files you want and then reinstall Windows from scratch . This doesn’t cost anything, and it can make your computer run more like it did when it was new.

There are also some inexpensive hardware upgrades you could consider. If your computer uses a hard disk, a solid-state drive (or SSD) can dramatically boost your speed.

Unlike a hard disk, an SSD has no moving parts, making it faster to load files and apps. It will also be quieter and less likely to fail. Expect to pay around $60 for an SSD with 500 gigabytes, which should be more than large enough for Windows as well as your files, apps and games.

You could also upgrade your computer’s memory (RAM), especially if you have 4 gigabytes or less. More RAM is especially helpful if your computer is slow to switch between multiple apps or browser tabs, or if it slows down noticeably as you open more apps at once.

Some computers’ storage or memory can’t be upgraded; the memory and SSD manufacturer Crucial has a comprehensive upgrade adviser page that can tell you whether your computer can be upgraded and what kind of parts it will need.

Don’t spend more than $100 or $150 on new parts, especially if your computer is more than four or five years old. Consider saving that money toward a new system instead.

Before we go …

China’s clash of generations: A commercial extolling Chinese youth, aired online and on state-run television, provoked an immediate nationwide backlash in the country, writes my colleague Li Yuan .

Ads that aren’t allowed, selling products that don’t exist: Facebook has banned advertisements for medical masks in the pandemic because of price gouging and shortages for health care workers. But one volunteer at a Virginia church saw such ads, clicked on them and bought masks. The masks never arrived and probably never existed, showing the limits of Facebook’s ability to police its own digital hangouts, BuzzFeed News writes .

Presidential candidates text like your relatives, basically: President Trump’s campaign text messages to supporters ARE SHORT AND SHOUTY LIKE THIS, while Joe Biden’s campaign texts tend to apologize and run on for several paragraphs. “Clearly, both campaigns do their best to adhere to the style of their candidate ,” my colleague Nick Corasaniti writes for our On Politics newsletter .

Hugs to this

A herd of escaped goats (?!) take over a neighborhood near San Jose, Calif.

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else you’d like us to explore. You can reach us at [email protected].

Shira Ovide writes the On Tech newsletter, a guide to how technology is reshaping our lives and world. More about Shira Ovide