The Repair Act, approved by the European Parliament, clarifies manufacturers’ obligations to repair goods and encourages consumers to extend the life cycle of products through repair.
The European Parliament has adopted the Right to Repair Directive, which aims to encourage more sustainable consumption by facilitating the repair of defective products, reducing waste and supporting the repair sector.
According to the author of Parliament’s report on the right to repair legislation, René Repasi, “the right of consumers to repair products will become a reality. It will be easier and cheaper to repair instead of buying expensive new products.”
According to the new directive, manufacturers will have to supply spare parts and tools at a reasonable price and will be prohibited from resorting to contractual clauses, hardware or software techniques that prevent repair, and cannot prevent the use of second-hand or 3D-printed spare parts by independent repair shops, nor refuse to repair a product solely for economic reasons or because it has previously been repaired by someone else.
To facilitate the repair process, a European digital platform with national sections will be created to help consumers easily find local repair shops, sellers of reconditioned goods, buyers of defective items or community-based repair initiatives. In addition, a European information form may also be made available to consumers to support, evaluate and compare repair services.
According to the European Parliament, in order to make reparations more accessible, each Member State will have to implement at least one measure to promote reparation, such as reparation vouchers and funds, carry out information campaigns, offer reparation courses or support community-based reparation spaces.
Marta Cerqueira is from Minho and a vegetarian. Luckily, she lives in Lisbon, where there is more tofu than sarrabulho. She has been a journalist for over 15 years, the last of which writing about food and sustainability. Now, out of the newsroom, she continues to write whenever she can, be it in magazines, journals, post its, or on her Instagram page, which she uses to share a life divided between being a mom-person-foodie-traveler. Still, she created Peggada so she could write about what doesn't fit in a magazine, journal, post it or Instagram: a better world.
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