U.S. produces 6.9 million tons of electronic waste annually

In 2019, the United States produced 6.9 million metric tons of electronic waste — roughly the equivalent of 38,000 blue whales.

In part, this is a crisis manufactured by tech companies, who make it unnecessarily difficult to repair their gadgets, encouraging customers to buy new and trash the old. We should be able to get our electronics fixed — and a new bill in Congress could make that happen.

Tell your U.S. representative today to back the Digital Fair Repair Act.

It’s a familiar story: a computer that won’t stop freezing, a smartphone with a cracked screen, or a laptop with sticky keys that won’t unstick.

But when you try to get it fixed, you can’t find the parts or instructions you need. You go to your local repair shop or the fix-it booth at the mall, and they can’t find what they need either. So your only option is to take it back to the manufacturer, which charges you outrageous prices to fix your stuff — because they’re the only ones who can.

If the price is too high, or if they won’t fix it at all, then your gadget winds up in the trash, and you have to replace it.

When electronics manufacturers put up barriers to repair their items, they don’t just make it harder for us to get our own stuff fixed. They also contribute to a ballooning e-waste problem that’s polluting our planet.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. That’s why we at Fair Share are working to win reforms across the country that will guarantee our right to repair our own stuff.

And now, we have the chance to make that change on the national level. Tell your U.S. representative to support the Digital Fair Repair Act to ensure our right to fair repair.

Across the country, we’ve been making serious progress toward winning the right to fair repair. Right to Repair legislation is now being considered in more than half the states, and President Biden’s recent executive order endorsing the right to fair repair just gave our movement a new breath of air.

But if the fight for fair repair in statehouses across the country is any indication, we’ll face stiff industry opposition. Collectively, the tech companies that are fighting our right to fair repair are worth over $10.7 trillion — and they’re willing to spend big bucks to defeat Right to Repair legislation.

We’ll need to stand together to stand up to this big money. By rallying thousands of supporters across the country, we can make it clear to Congress that the people want the right to fair repair — and we can win.

Will you help us win the right to fair repair?