Right to repair advocates argue that manufacturers’ repair restrictions contribute to environmental and electronic waste. Manufacturers dispute this assertion.
Right to repair advocates argue that such restrictions are contributing to the amount of e-waste, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) considers to include the subset of discarded, donated, or recycled electronics that end up in a landfill or an unprotected dump site in the US or abroad.[1] For example, according to LKQ Corp., and as described above, automobile manufacturers engage in VIN burning, which contributes to electronic waste because parts cannot be reused.[2] By contrast, LKQ Corp. alleged that remanufactured parts save up to 85% of material and energy costs relative to producing a comparable new product.[3] Workshop panelists Theresa McDonough, Jennifer Larson, and Nathan Proctor similarly stated that repair restrictions contribute to e-waste.[4] Proctor stated that Americans dispose of 416,000 cell phones each day.[5]
Alcorn of the CTA, however, disputed that statistic, arguing it was more than 15 years old, and stated that the CTA conducts consumer recycling and reuse surveys every couple of years in part to find out what consumers do with their old devices. According to the CTA, the “vast majority of consumers that removed a mobile device from their household in the year leading up to the study did so by trading it in for a new device, donating it, or recycling it.”[6]
Like the CTA, several organizations representing manufacturers stated that manufacturer repair restrictions do not contribute to e-waste because manufacturers have implemented protocols and procedures to reduce e-waste. Specifically, CompTIA, citing a Rochester Institute of Technology study and a 2016 EPA report, stated that e-waste is in a period of steep decline because manufacturers have developed robust policies and programs to ensure that they are continuously improving the sustainability of their products for their whole lifecycle.[7] And CompTIA stated that existing policies around e-waste and “green procurement” promote repair
- ↑ See Cleaning up Electronic Waste (E-Waste), U.S. EPA, https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/cleaning-electronic-waste-e-waste (“EPA considers e-waste to be a subset of used electronics and recognizes the inherent value of these materials that can be reused, refurbished or recycled to minimize the actual waste that might end up in a landfill or improperly disposed in an unprotected dump site either in the US or abroad.”) (last visited Mar. 22, 2021); according to U.S. PIRG, “The average family generates 176 pounds of electronic waste each year, and the United States generates some 6.9 million tons nationally.” Alex DeBellis and Nathan Proctor, Repair Saves Family Big, U.S. PIRG, (Jan. 2021), https://uspirg.org/feature/usp/repair-saves-families-big.
- ↑ LKQ empirical research, at 6.
- ↑ Id.
- ↑ Transcript, at 25, 62–65.
- ↑ Id. at 33.
- ↑ CTA comment, at 6. CTA also referenced a CTA study claiming that only 1% of respondents throw away their phones. Id.
- ↑ CompTIA comment, at 11. Neither the Rochester Institute of Technology study nor the EPA report appear to support a conclusion that e-waste peaked in 2013–2014 and is in a period of steep decline.
shows that race and ethnicity are correlated with the way consumers are able to cover a $400 emergency repair, with 47 percent of Black adults and 55 percent of Hispanic adults able to cover such a cost with cash or its equivalent compared with 77 percent of White adults. Id.
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