RIGHT TO REPAIR
A big fight is happening world-wide to push governments to ensure people can repair the products they own.
“The right to repair refers to proposed government legislation to forbid manufacturers from imposing barriers that deny consumers the ability to repair and modify their own consumer products.” | Wikipedia
This is happening because of:
- Planned Obsolescence: companies are purposely building their products to break faster, so you have to pay to replace them sooner.
- Unfixable Products: some products will have their components soldered, glued, or riveted, to stop people from being able to repair.
- Brand-Specific Parts: These parts may cost more than buying a new product. As well as that, some companies refuse to let independent repair technicians purchase their parts to try and force costumers to only use the product company for repairs.
- Restrictive Programing. For these, the programs refuse to let you fix your own products (a large example of this happens to farm equipment, where farmers have to hack their own equipment if they want to repair on their own).
More Info:
REPAIR CAFES
Repair cafes are typically community-run events where volunteers gather to fix the broken items of strangers for free. My town started doing it a long time ago, and it was so popular that it now happens several times a year.
People bring in stand mixers, vacuums, computers, items that need sewing repairs, and more. Often, the person is very willing to explain the repairs as they do them.
In other places, repair cafes have become more permanent. For example, in Austria, the government started paying those who repair.
Repair cafes not only save people money, but they also can greatly reduce the amount of waste produced by saving those repaired items from the landfill.
More Info on Repair Cafes:
It would be great to have a list of these in the states. It’s so backwards here.
I found this map, but there ain't many of them that side of the pond.
It always blows my mind that we’re such a car centric hellhole but when I was in college living in an apartment I’d have to sneak to work on my car because there wasn’t any DIY garages and it was against lease terms to work on cars on the property.
I’d have to wait until 5/6 at night right before it got dark and rush to change my oil or brakes before it got too dark to see.
These days I give my younger coworkers the pin and 24/7 access to my garages if they want to work on their cars or any projects really.
You are a rare breed, the world needs more people like you.
Or like an osm-based map that shows them then you could easily take it international
It looks like there are some! https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/
Thanks, I’ll take a peek around.