2012: The Year of the Fixer
Photo by Eric Craig Doster
Anyone who still doubts that people care about sustainable electronics has not been paying attention this year. We are officially dubbing 2012 as “the year of the fixer”: More and more people are breaking out their screwdrivers, and the headlines have been full of repair stories. The iPhone 5 is the most repairable iPhone ever. There are fewer toxic chemicals in new cell phones than ever before. A draft of a new green cell phone standard, UL 110, requires that manufacturers secure cases with screws rather than glues. And Sprint announced that all of their phones will meet this standard—they will be openable, modular, and repairable.
There was so much going on this year that we missed some exciting repair news. So, here are five more important repair stories that fell through our cracks:
1. Massachusetts Defends Their Right to Repair
Massachusetts voters passed a statewide measure in November asserting the freedom to service their cars wherever they want—at the dealership, at an independent service shop, or in their own driveways. The Motor Vehicle Owners’ Right to Repair Act makes it illegal for any manufacturer to sell or lease a new car without allowing the owner access to the same diagnostic and repair information that manufacturers have. Independent repair technicians—who directly compete with major dealerships for business—must also be given access to the service and repair documents.
Rallying behind the cry of “it’s your car, you paid for it, you should get it fixed where you want,” voters approved the ballot measure by a whopping 86%. The Massachusetts Right to Repair Committee called the vote an “historic victory for car owners”—and indeed the bill is the first of its kind passed in the United States. Perhaps the law will pave the road for more sweeping national repair reform.
2. First E-waste Processing Plant in East Africa
This month, HP opened the first e-waste processing plant in East Africa. Technology has moved quickly into the developing world—thanks largely to cell phone usage, Africa has had one of the highest internet usage growth rates in the world over the last decade. When those devices break, they need to be disposed of somehow. Informal e-waste processing can be dangerous: Practices such as open burning and dissolving circuit boards in acid baths damage workers’ health. So it is vital that African nations develop safer ways to process e-waste.
This plant is a triple win: It’s a win for the environment. It’s a win for HP, which will make profit off the recycled e-waste. And it’s a win for the local community, which gets an influx of skilled, permanent jobs.
3. German Federal Environmental Agency Speaks out Against Sealed Batteries
People in high places are beginning to recognize that difficult-to-replace electronics batteries are an environmental nightmare. President of the German Federal Environmental Agency, Jochen Flasbarth, proposed banning devices with glued down-batteries like the iPad and the MacBook Retina. “That the battery component cannot be easily replaced is grotesque,” he said in an interview with Frankfurter Rundschau, “They must prohibit it.”
Hear, hear, Mr. Flasbarth. Batteries are a consumable: Like the tires on your car, they will wear out with normal use. An iPhone battery, for example, is rated for just 400 charge cycles—that is, 400 times completely discharging and fully recharging. For most people, this means the battery will last about two years. So when manufacturers seal a battery into a device with industrial-strength adhesive, or make it inaccessible behind other components, they are essentially building in a death clock. If the device dies when the battery does, it’s a waste of all the other longer-lasting components. Germany hasn’t (yet) banned sealed batteries, but we approve the sentiment.
4. Have a Coffee; Fix Your Toaster
Repair isn’t just happening in the garage anymore. At last count, 40 community repair cafés were up and running in the Netherlands alone. Café participants bring their broken items, pool their knowledge and tools, and get the product back to working condition again.
And what starts in the Netherlands doesn’t stay in the Netherlands. Spurred on by the resurgent interest in tinkering, small repair cafés have started popping up all over the world. US repair collectives have picked up steam this year, too: We’ve chatted with repair gurus from Fixers Collective in New York, Fixit Clinic in the Bay Area, the West Seattle Fixers Collective, and the Makerspace Urbana Help Desk.
It’s like we’ve always said: Repair builds community.
5. Ellen MacArthur Foundation Publishes Towards the Circular Economy
All roads eventually lead to the dump in a linear consumption model built on taking natural resources, manufacturing objects, and disposing of waste. But the earth is a closed system. We cannot simply throw our trash “away.” Away doesn’t exist. It never has.
Recently, a new replacement model has gained public support and momentum. Inspired by nature, the “circular economy” model imagines a consumption cycle that practically eliminates waste. Instead of moving from cradle to grave, manufactured goods follow a path from cradle to cradle. Waste becomes a resource. In February, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) published a groundbreaking report on the environmental and economic benefits of a circular economy. As it turns out, a circular economy—focused on reuse and remanufacturing—is also a prosperous economy. The EMF estimates that the EU manufacturing sector could realise net materials cost savings worth up to $630 billion per annum towards 2025.
Of course, there is still much work to be done. We worry about the trend toward sealed devices, and manufacturers like Toshiba continue to take all their repair manuals out of consumers’ hands. But repair advocates have made a lot of progress this year—and broad public support for repair continues to make that progress possible. With every law passed and openable device released, we move one step closer to building a more repairable, more sustainable future.
Images from our Honda Accord Headlight repair guide and Brian Duggan of Makerspace Urbana.
Comments
AND in 2012 we opened THE FIX SHOP… a place for people to bring there items in for repair, whatever they may be, if they don’t want to or can’t do it themselves. This was definitely the year for this fixer.
Thank you (and the Sacramento Bee for carrying the article on your business) for helping open up the interior world of the “Secret Inner Sanctum”.
Being a former chic techie (involuntary, I assure you), I still like to hold my fist up in the air and say “I still have it!” Thanks again
Congrats on the LA Times front page. Your site continues to impress.
One note, on the opening paragraph… “There are fewer toxic chemicals in new cell phones than ever before. ” You should really look upstream. The fixation on the end of life is a scatalogical approach to environmental health. Just as a device can be less toxic but less repairable, it can be less toxic and more toxic in its lifecycle. Environmentalists successfully displaced leaded solder (84% recycled content) with tin-silver solder via ROHS. The landfills are now safer. But tin-silver mining happens on coral islands in Indonesia. The western landfill is a tiny bit safer. But there is actuall more mercury and lead released in the “non-toxic” metal mining than there was in the original solder. Oh.. and look up tin whiskers. The devices are less reliable and less repairable. Smart sites like IFIXIT.org need to stay away from the shallow applause business and focus on sustainability.
Robin
I need help to replace the glass on my IPad2
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