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E-waste in a recycling company
Photo: Marcel Kusch / dpa
According to plans by the federal government, consumers in Germany should be able to have defective mobile phones or other products repaired more easily in the future.
"With the right to repairs, we will take an important step out of the throwaway society," said Federal Consumer Protection Minister Steffi Lemke of the dpa news agency.
"It makes sense to have a repairability index that shows how easy it is to repair a product," said Lemke.
She referred to a corresponding model in France.
An index was introduced there at the beginning of last year, which uses various criteria to provide information on how easy it is to repair smartphones, laptops, televisions, lawn mowers or other devices.
"I would like to develop this in a European context and introduce it in Germany," said Lemke.
At the turn of the year, the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations called on the federal government to initiate the planned right to repairs by mid-March.
Apparently it's not going that fast.
Lemke said: »I want to initiate a broad social debate that will give us a new understanding of how to deal with consumer goods.
Consumers should be able to use products for as long as possible.«
The Greens politician outlined what she believes a "right to repair" should bring in concrete terms.
"In concrete terms, this means, for example, that smartphones and tablets must be built in such a way that their battery and individual parts can be easily removed and replaced - as far as technically feasible." battery is no longer OK.
The SPD, Greens and FDP had announced a “right to repairs” in their coalition agreement.
According to the coalition plans, the service life and repairability of a product should become “a recognizable feature of the product’s properties”.
There are already repair specifications at EU level.
For example, manufacturers of washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators and other large household appliances must ensure that spare parts are available for seven to ten years.
The aim is to reduce the enormous amounts of electronic waste that accumulate in Europe every year.
According to the European Parliament, only 42 percent of the e-waste generated in the EU is recycled.
The industry advocates differentiated solutions.
In the case of large household appliances, it could make more ecological sense to buy new, energy-efficient products than to repair old ones, the industry association BDI noted.
The digital association Bitkom had warned that if all spare parts were to be produced and stored in the stockpile in the future, the environmental balance could become negative.
mmq/dpa