Governor Gavin Newsom has signed the Right to Repair Act, which makes it easier for owners or independent shops to repair appliances, radios, TVs, and other products. Minnesota, New York, and Colorado have enacted similar laws. What does the “right to repair” movement mean for consumers and small independent shops?
California’s new legislation requires manufacturers to provide parts, software, and manuals for seven years after a $100+ device is produced and sold. For products under $100, the duration is three years.
Before this, it was tough for consumers to fix their own goods. Sandra Goldmark, professor at Barnard College and author of Fixation: How To Have Stuff Without Breaking The Planet, uses the example of the iPhone.
“Historically, if your iPhone broke, you could maybe bring it to a Genius bar. But a lot of ways that the phone was designed made it very difficult either to repair yourself, or for an independent repair shop to fix it. So if you couldn't get Apple to fix it, you are often out of luck, and forced to buy a new phone. That is called planned obsolescence,” she explains. “And it has been very, very frustrating for users because it flies in the face of common sense. This is a perfectly good object, it's got this one little thing broken, why can't I fix it?”
Originally, Apple opposed the legislation. Goldmark says it’s an exciting and important sign of Apple and other companies changing their understanding of sustainability and climate goals.
“If your core business model is making and selling and extracting resources for more and more and more phones every year, it really doesn't matter how many solar panels or how much reduced packaging you do. So companies today, I think, are realizing they have to look at their core product. And that means designing things to have a long lifespan … that can be fixed … that are made responsibly in the first place. And so it's exciting.”
Goldmark says she wants Apple’s business plan to include repairs and sales of used phones. “If we can make repair and reuse as much a part of our economy as the sale of new goods, I think that's a good thing.”
Now will people be more inclined to get out their tools and fix their goods at home? Or will they stick to what they’re used to: buying a new replacement?
Both will happen, and independent repair shops can better help consumers too, Goldmark says. “I ran short-term repair shops all over New York City … from 2013 to 2020. And we fixed … phones … vacuums lamps, appliances, all kinds of products that are affected by this bill. And we were able to fix 85% of the stuff we got.”