Right to repair laws gain steam, gives more options to consumers

Proposal's in at least 29 states are making it easier to repair smartphone and other electronics, saving consumers money and helping them avoid buying replacements.

Minnesota is among the states passing the "right to repair" laws and at Repowered Electronics Recycling Company in St. Paul, Minnesota, you can find a 1970s stereo, a 1980s Mac computer and a Nintendo game console from the 90s.  

"We recycle 3 million pounds every single year and about 10% of that gets reused and put back onto the market," Maria Jensen, the advocacy manager for Repowered, said. 

Technician Tara Dailey repairs old electronics to resell. But trying to get parts from manufacturers is difficult.

"I do iPads. I do iPhones, iMacs," Dailey said. "They try their best to monopolize the market, make sure parts are hard to come by or stupid expensive, so they’re getting some gain from that."

Repowered’s testing repair manager, Chris Olson, says electronics used to last longer.  

"I think the companies, they see value in making things that can't be repaired, and the consumers are forced to you know, get rid of it and go buy the newest model," Olson said.

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But Minnesota’s new ‘right to repair’ bill requires manufacturers to let independent repair shops and consumers buy the parts and tools necessary to fix their own equipment. It does not apply to medical devices or farm equipment and makes exemptions for some video games and cybersecurity equipment. 

"People will notice that repair costs will come way down. Because even if you only take your product to the manufacturer for their authorized service. Now the manufacturer is competing with all the other service providers in the marketplace. And so, they're going to have to charge a more competitive price. Used products are going to have more value and lasts longer," Nathan Proctor, the senior campaign director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s ‘right to repair’ campaign, said.

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Proctor also says that electronic waste and manufacturing are huge environmental problems. He says if Americans use their cell phones for one year longer on average, it will have the same benefit to the climate as taking over 600,000 cars off the road. 

"Consumers are spending a lot of money on new electronics, like we're buying stuff all the time. And that's wasteful and annoying," Proctor said. "If you buy a product, it's going to be pretty much up to the manufacturer to decide how much to help you fix that product. If it breaks, some companies let you buy the spare parts and read the service manual, and they'll let you download whatever software you might need to facilitate the repair and other manufacturers won't let you have anything. They'll push you to go to an authorized service dealer, and that company might be really far away."

Proctor says if you have a MacBook and you take it to a small electronics repair store, they're probably not officially authorized by Apple to fix that laptop, but 'right to repair' laws require manufacturers to give local shops repair manuals and parts needed to make fixes.

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Right to repair bills have passed in Massachusetts, New York, Colorado and Minnesota.

Over 29 states have introduced similar legislation this year. But each law is different. For example, Colorado’s bill only applies to farm equipment, while Minnesota’s bill doesn’t even include farm equipment. 

That’s why some advocates, like Vibrant Technologies CEO Jennifer VanDerHorst-Larson, hope for a more permanent, federal solution.

Vibrant Technologies sells new and used IT hardware from their warehouse in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. VanDerHorst-Larson has been supporting this legislation since 2014. 

"It will give companies here a competitive advantage, because they'll be able to fix more things," VanDerHorst-Larson said. "The manufacturers are going to be forced to have to give us what we should have to fix our products. They've already been very adversarial with it. And that's why I do believe this needs to be a federal fix." 

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VanDerHorst-Larson says it is a huge change, because it will allow their business to fix computer bugs and errors. Instead of selling off just parts of computers, they will be able to sell off entire servers and systems. 

A Harvard Business Review article does raise potential downsides of right to repair legislation. It suggests some manufacturers may sell cheaper goods, to encourage consumers to upgrade to newer products. Or some companies could just choose to raise prices.