When I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s, things were made to last. My husband and I have a waffle iron that belonged to his grandmother—it's about 80 or 90 years old and it still works! My father loved to fix things and taught me to love it, too. So repairing things seems natural to me.
However, these days things are made to break down. It's called "planned obsolescence". Manufacturers make sure their products will stop working after a few years. Some obsolescence is natural as new products are added and technology advances. But planned obsolescence becomes a problem when the manuals and parts for repair aren't made available. Consumers are forced to discard products and buy new ones, creating huge amounts of waste. And small repair shops can't stay in business, hurting local economies.
Hence, the Right to Repair movement. In 2013, consumers and independent repair shops created The Repair Association to fight for the right to fix things. Since then, they've made real progress—in America, more than 25 states are considering (or have passed) Right to Repair bills, and changes have been made to U.S. copyright laws, with more to come. Roughly 15 million people and more than 400 companies belong to the Repair Association today
