Milestones: PIRG champions a Right to Repair

‘Batterygate’

In December 2017, at the height of the holiday shopping season, users of Apple’s iPhone discovered that the company had issued a software update that throttled phones’ processors if the phone detected the battery was worn down, as is commonly the case in older phones — without alerting users to the need for battery service.

“When users discovered that a $30 battery repair would fix their slow, buggy phones, they flocked to get phones fixed,” said Nathan Proctor, PIRG’s Right to Repair Campaign Director. “But Apple didn’t have enough capacity to fix all these phones right away, and huge waitlists formed.”

The waitlists illustrated how manufacturer-only repair had become a fragile, pricey and wasteful system. There weren’t enough “authorized” technicians to handle the volume of iPhone repairs. While a simple fix could have kept devices working, saving consumers money and keeping toxic chemicals out of our waste stream, the lack of repair options pushed consumers into buying new phones instead.

In the weeks after “BatteryGate” became public, PIRG surveyed 164 independent repair businesses. They reported a cumulative 37% increase in weekly battery replacement service requests. Self-repair interest surged as well —  online traffic seeking iPhone battery repair instructions on iFixit.com went up 153% between Dec. 20, 2017 and Jan. 22, 2018.

Our conclusion? People want the right to repair their own stuff – when they want, how they want, and with whom – outside of the manufacturer’s control. After all, whose stuff is it anyway?

The Right to Repair movement is born

When people have little choice but to buy a new product when an old one breaks, they spend money they could otherwise save. That’s the consumer protection side of Right to Repair.

Beyond saving consumers time and money, Right to Repair holds out the promise of a new relationship to “stuff.” Instead of engaging in an endless cycle of buying stuff, using it, and throwing it away so we can replace it with new stuff, the Right to Repair movement imagines a different world — one in which more of us use the stuff we buy with care, and repair it before we consider throwing it away or even recycling it.

Repair is the fourth “R” in the old ecological mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle. It also speaks to the conservative value of self-reliance. It’s the rare issue that, thus far, transcends partisan politics.

Yet too often, companies limit consumers’ and independent repair shops’ access to the parts, tools, service information and diagnostic software needed to fix electronics and other products.

Restrictions on repairs to increasingly software-dependent John Deere tractors, for example, have inspired some farmers to hack through the digital locks on their machines rather than have them hauled back to the dealer for an “authorized” repair.

In 2019, customers discovered that replacing the battery in an iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max or iPhone XR at a repair shop other than an Apple store resulted in warning messages and disabled features.

Restrictions on repair add up to inconvenience and frustration for consumers, thousands of whom have formed their own repair groups, clubs and online communities. And these restrictions also result in a mountain of e-waste — an estimated 59 million tons of it in 2019 alone.

‘Why can’t we just fix our stuff?’

In 2019, Nathan spoke at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s “Nixing the Fix” workshop, which investigated repair restrictions. At the event, he delivered 7,900 petition signatures urging the FTC to take action. In 2021, Nathan joined iFixit and Repair.org in delivering 15,000 more signatures to FTC commissioners. On May 6, the FTC released its long-anticipated “Nixing the Fix” followup report, finding “scant evidence to support manufacturers’ justifications for repair restrictions” and pledging to work with lawmakers on a remedy.

In 2020, when restrictions threatened to slow down medical equipment repairs amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a PIRG campaign won the release of service information and access keys from ventilator manufacturers. That same year, PIRG’s Right to Repair campaign was named a finalist in Fast Company’s “World Changing Ideas” contest.

Meanwhile, our researchers have worked with iFixit to catalogue the devices most commonly in need of fixing in states around the country, with momentum for more action steadily growing. In 2018, 18 states introduced Right to Repair legislation. Two years later, that number rose to 20. In 2021, more than half the states in the country introduced Right to Repair bills, in large part thanks to the work of Nathan, PIRG organizers, and our allies in the repair community.

Opposition from trade groups and manufacturers has remained steadfast. In 2018, for example, lobbyists representing Microsoft were instrumental in killing a right to repair bill in Washington, according to state Rep. Jeff Morris.

The market value of these companies is measured in trillions of dollars – dollars with which they’ve amassed considerable political clout. Even so, on July 29, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order that, among other provisions, calls on the Federal Trade Commission to act against restrictions on independent repair shops and DIY repairs.

On Nov. 17, 2021, Apple reversed its longstanding policy against selling spare parts, providing repair instructions, and making repair software tools available to customers. This about-face came just days after the company pledged to stop deactivating Face ID after third parties repaired screens, and after years of action and advocacy by PIRG and other Right to Repair advocates.

Green Century Capital Management*, The Public Interest Network’s affiliated environmentally and socially responsible mutual fund company, had also filed a shareholder resolution with Apple calling for it to account for its anti-competitive repair policies, with Green Century President Leslie Samuelrich warning that Apple “risks losing its reputation as a climate leader if it does not cease its anti-repair practices.” Apple went to the Securities and Exchange Commission to challenge the resolution. On the same day Green Century was due to defend its position to the SEC, Apple announced its new policy.

About this series: PIRG, Environment America and The Public Interest Network have achieved much more than we can cover on this page. You can find more milestones of our work on zero waste below. You can also explore an interactive timeline featuring more of our network’s zero waste milestones.