The Right to Repair can reduce waste and fix a costly electronics replacement problem

Alex DeBellis and Janet Domenitz 

Published Feb 6, 2021 

Repairing instead of replacing electronics would save Bay Staters $874 million annually, but companies make it hard for us to fix our stuff.

We’re constantly bombarded with advertisements for a new phone, a laptop with a bigger and better resolution, or a shiny new refrigerator that cools your food and tells you the weather simultaneously. Big tech is pushing us into bad habits in the United States: we buy incredible new devices, but we get rid of them right when they run into minor problems we could fix. Meanwhile, the products we buy aren’t lasting like they used to. 

Even if we don’t purchase the fanciest gadgets on the market, our new devices cost a lot. The average American household spends $1,480 per year on new electronics. Rapidly replacing all those electronics isn’t just wearing a hole in our pockets, it’s also doing serious harm to the planet. The United States now produces 6.9 million tons of electronic waste annually, which leach toxic metals into our water and soil. If 6.9 millions tons is hard to picture, imagine we are discarding an Eiffel Tower’s worth of devices every 13 hours, for a total of 683 towers of tossed electronics each year. It’s absurd and unsustainable. 

To get to zero waste in Massachusetts we need to reduce. One way to reduce is with the right to repair. With the win/win of saving money and saving the planet, everyone should be on board.

A new report from U.S. PIRG, Repair Saves Families Big, found that if we repaired our devices instead of replacing them, the average American family would save $330 each year. Nationwide, that’s $40 billion annually that Americans could hold onto while budgets are tighter than ever. For Massachusetts families, that totals $874 million. Even better, that means more business for local fix-it shops, appliance repair technicians and refurbishers instead of spending that money to support a distant global supply chain. 

Our electronics replacement habit has consequences that we haven’t been able to address with recycling or product design. We’re told to recycle our old electronics, but even with advanced recycling systems, it’s always more efficient and earth-friendly to keep using what we already have. When 85% of a phone’s climate warming emissions come from creating the phone itself, not upgrading your phone may be one of the best things you can do for the planet.

The benefits of repair are clear across the board -- but manufacturers often don’t make it easy to fix their products. Consider this: You could extend the lifespan of your smartphone by at least three years by swapping out its battery for $50 or less, but that doesn’t benefit the makers of $1,000 smartphones, who would rather sell you a new one. Instead, they use proprietary screws and adhesives that can scare away consumers from replacing the battery on their own. 

The barriers set up by those big electronics companies mean we need Right to Repair legislation to mandate fair access and reasonable pricing for repair necessities: parts, tools, schematics and manuals. Right to Repair is straightforward and practical, and both Democrats and Republicans around the country  support it widely. We are grateful that Massachusetts state Rep. Claire Cronin (HD 260) and Sen. Mike Brady (SD 199) are sponsoring this bill in the Massachusetts Legislature, and we hope it will move quickly and become law. 

Massachusetts consumers should have the power to decide whether to replace their device, support a local small business, or save money with DIY repair and save the planet with less waste — without large electronics companies limiting our choices.

Alex DeBellis is a campaign associate with the U.S. PIRG Campaign for the Right to Repair. Janet Domenitz is the executive director of MASSPIRG.