Repair and reuse provide a positive waste prevention measure. Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Professor Leanne Wiseman, explains.
Australians are buying more and more smart devices, machines and equipment. Our homes and workplaces are filled with smart phones, computers, internet-connected fridges, washing machines, dishwashers and air-conditioners that turn off when people leave the room.
We all love the smart things that make our lives more convenient. But as we know, these smart things break; so what happens then? Increasingly, because these smart machines and devices are difficult to fix, there is a growing pile of discarded, broken devices.
The software that makes these devices so attractive often prevents us accessing a cheap and affordable fix. Companies often deny there are any obstacles to repairing their products.
Or they cite concerns over intellectual property, safety, security, or environmental grounds. But underlying all these arguments is a simpler reason: companies would make less money if consumers repaired rather than bought a new product, and less money again if they lose their hold on who can repair specific products.
Unrepairable devices, products and machines are a significant and growing source of avoidable electronic waste – the fastest growing waste stream in the world.
The scale and size of the e-waste crisis is highlighted in the recent United Nations’ Global E-Waste Monitor Report 2024. Global e-waste is growing five times faster than recycling and Australia’s consumption and use of digitally enhanced goods is in line with this growth.
This report underscores the importance of ensuring that product repair is one of the key measures required to address the growing e-waste problem:
- One-third of global electronic waste comes from small equipment and only 12 per cent is recycled.
- Rare earth elements are critical for future green technologies but less than one per cent of our supplies come from recycling.
- Manufacturing is growing five times faster than recycling.
Across the world, there is an urgent call for greater investment in infrastructure development and more promotion of repair and reuse. It is clear that Australia cannot recycle our way out of our e-waste crisis. Repair provides a much more positive waste prevention measure compared to simply recycling materials from end-of-life products.
Yes, we need better design, better procurement, and recycling. But we also need to build and support a Repair Economy in Australia! To do this we need to remove barriers to repair and make spare parts, tools and repair information and services more accessible and more affordable for everyone.
Repair and reuse are central to achieving a truly circular, less wasteful, and resilient economy, helping to tackle climate change and achieve Australia’s net zero ambition.
To do this, we need our local, state and Commonwealth governments to support and elevate the role that repair is playing in our move to a circular economy. This can be done by developing repair-friendly policies such as repair incentives or bonuses.
There are good examples in the EU of how repair can be supported and elevated. In 2022, Austria set up a national repair voucher scheme, which effectively subsidised the cost of professional repairs by allowing families to obtain a rebate of 50 per cent of the price of a repair, up to €200 per year.
France has also introduced an innovative repair voucher scheme in 2023, funded by Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) income.
This example of how such a scheme could be funded could be of interest in Australia, as it effectively uses part of the existing contributions from manufacturers to extend the lifetime of products and prevent products from prematurely entering the e-waste stream.
France also has successfully introduced a Repairability Label which gives a score out of 10 for how repairable a product is. A repairability label on our white goods and household appliances would assist consumers to choose more repairable products and incentivise manufacturers to design more repairable products.
Both repair-friendly initiatives were supported by the Productivity Commission’s Right to Repair Inquiry report in 2021. This report contains several great recommendations of what Australia needs to do to support our Right to Repair in Australia.
Grass roots support
Our Repair Café movement in Australia is doing a great job in raising awareness of the importance of repair in our local communities. Australia has more than 110 Repair Cafés. Since the first Repair Café opened in Sydney in 2014, Australian Repair Cafés have expanded in number and popularity.
More Australians are realising the importance and value of community place-based activities that help not only to save money and provide a venue for knowledge and skills exchange but importantly strengthens communities. It also helps to reduce waste by prioritising repair over replacement.
There is probably a Repair Café near you – a map of Repair Cafés can be found on the Australian Repair Network’s website. Repair cafés are run by volunteers and would benefit from support from their local communities. They play an important role in raising awareness of the importance of repairing and reusing the things we own. They would love to see support from their local communities, councils, local politicians and from local industries.
If we gain the Right to Repair in Australia, we could expect new products to be able to be repaired, expect to be able to repair products anywhere – not just at manufacturer centres. This would save us all money and divert significant volumes of waste from landfill. If we return to the old ways of repairing rather than throwing out products, we would also trigger a rebirth of repair-based businesses, employment growth and up-skilling.
There are plenty of opportunities for our resource recovery industries to partner with the Australian Repair Network to help us elevate the role that repair can play in reducing our waste.
As resources grow scarce, we can’t just rely upon recycling to keep pace with the rapid production and consumption of smart devices, machines and equipment, and our rubbish dumps overflow, there is no time to lose.
For more information, email:
l.wiseman@griffith.edu.au