BERLIN (AP) – Companies selling refrigerators, washing machines, dryers or televisions in the European Union will have to guarantee the repair of these appliances for up to ten years, to help reduce the large amount of electrical waste that accumulates each year. on the continent.
The “right to reparation,” as it is sometimes called, goes into effect Monday in the 27-nation bloc. It is part of a broader effort to reduce the environmental footprint of manufactured products by making them more durable and energy efficient.
“This is a big step in the right direction,” said Daniel Affelt of the environmental group BUND-Berlin, which runs several “repair cafes” where people can take broken appliances and get help fixing them again. .
Modern appliances are usually glued or riveted, he said. “If you need specialized tools or need to break your device, you will not be able to repair it.”
Lack of spare parts is another problem, advocates say. Sometimes a single broken tooth in a small plastic pinion can throw a proverbial key into the work.
“People want to repair appliances,” Affelt said. “When you tell them there are no spare parts for a device that is only a couple of years old, they obviously feel really frustrated about it.”
Under new EU rules, manufacturers will have to ensure that parts are available for up to a decade, although some will only be provided to professional repair companies to make sure they are installed correctly.
New devices will also need to come with repair manuals and be manufactured so that they can be disassembled with conventional tools when they really can no longer be fixed, to improve recycling.
Every year, Europeans produce more than 16 kilograms of electrical waste per person. About half of this waste is due to broken appliances and the EU only recycles around 40%, leaving behind huge amounts of potentially hazardous material.
German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said that in a next step, manufacturers should indicate how long a product is expected to work and repair it if a previous breakdown occurs. This would encourage companies to build more durable products, he said.
“In repair cafes we see many devices that broke shortly after the warranty expired,” said Affelt, a phenomenon that has prompted some environmentalists to accuse manufacturers of designing their devices with planned obsolescence.
Knowing that an appliance will actually last a decade can motivate consumers to choose products that are more durable or can be easily fixed, he said.
“For the vast majority of devices, repair is the right choice,” Affelt said, adding that the exception could be old, inefficient refrigerators that could contain potent greenhouse gases that fuel climate change.
In a next step, environmentalists and consumer rights groups want the “right to repair” to be expanded to include smartphones, laptops and other small electrical devices.
In response to growing demand, Apple announced last year that it would begin providing training and spare parts to certified independent repair shops that would fix Mac computers, not just iPhones.
The right to repair bills has been introduced in several U.S. state legislatures, which attract bipartisan support, although no national measures are in place yet.
Sweden has gone further than most of the EU, subjecting repairs and spare parts to a lower value-added tax.
The block’s eco-design directive, which includes the right to repair requirement, will also review existing energy labels that describe how much electricity washing machines and other household appliances consume. The new seven-step scale from A to G will be complemented by a QR code that provides consumers with more information, such as the intensity of the devices.