As electronic waste piles up, we still don't have the right to repair our own devices

When manufacturers make it so we can’t repair our electronic devices, the unnecessary waste piles up — literally. Last year, we generated almost 59 million tons of e-waste worldwide. To put that massive number in perspective, it’s 162 times the weight of the Empire State Building.

It’s hard to say exactly how much of that waste could have been avoided, but we know it’s a lot. Manufacturers have an incentive to keep us buying new products instead of repairing the ones we already have, and they often make repair difficult or impossible.

Tell legislators in your state to support our right to repair our own devices.

Take cell phones, for example. Here in the U.S., we discard 416,000 cell phones every single day. But what other choice do we have when manufacturers make it unnecessarily hard for us to repair them?

One particularly egregious example: Last year, when the California Legislature was considering a Right to Fair Repair bill that would make it easier to repair our own devices, Apple sent lobbyists to convince lawmakers to abandon it.

Tell your legislators to listen to consumers, not manufacturers, and give us the Right to Fair Repair.

E-waste poses all kinds of environmental and health hazards. But even setting that aside, it’s just common sense — and it’s only fair — that we should be able to repair the stuff we own.

Join us in calling on your state legislator to support the Right to Fair Repair.