The world produced 62 million tonnes of electronic waste in 2022 and formally collected and recycled 22.3% of it. That is the headline from the fourth edition of the Global E-waste Monitor, published in 2024 by UNITAR and the ITU. E-waste is growing by about 2.6 million tonnes a year, and on current trends it reaches 82 million tonnes by 2030 while the documented recycling rate slips toward 20%.
Right-to-repair laws are the main policy response, and there are now a lot of them. There is also a lot of confusion about what they require, which ones are actually in force, and how much difference they make to someone standing in a shop with a cracked phone.
This article separates what is law from what is proposed, in the United States, the European Union and Canada, as of September 2026. It also covers parts pairing, manufacturer self-repair programmes, repairability scores, and what any of it changes for you.
The scale of the problem
The Global E-waste Monitor’s 2022 figures are the most recent comprehensive ones available, and they are worth reading carefully.
- 62 million tonnes generated, an 82% increase over 2010.
- 22.3% documented as formally collected and recycled.
- Per capita generation of 17.6 kg in Europe, 16.1 kg in Oceania and 14.1 kg in the Americas.
- Documented collection and recycling of 42.8% in Europe, against under 1% in Africa.
- Just 1% of global rare earth element demand is currently met by recycling e-waste.
The gap between generation and recycling is where the harm sits. Material that escapes formal processing generally ends up either in landfill or in informal recycling operations, where components are burned or acid-leached to recover metals. Lead, mercury, cadmium and brominated flame retardants are released in the process, and the health consequences for people living near those operations are well documented.
Repair does not fix this on its own, but the arithmetic is simple: a phone kept for five years instead of three generates roughly 40% less waste per year of service, and avoids the far larger environmental cost of manufacturing a replacement.
What right-to-repair laws actually require
Almost every electronics right-to-repair statute rests on the same core obligation. A manufacturer that provides repair documentation, tools, parts and diagnostic software to its own authorised service network must make the same things available to independent repair shops and device owners, on fair and reasonable terms.
That is narrower than most people assume. These laws generally do not:
- require devices to be designed to be repairable;
- require parts to be cheap;
- force a manufacturer to keep making parts indefinitely;
- cover products the manufacturer never serviced in the first place.
Carve-outs are extensive and vary by state. Game consoles, motor vehicles, medical devices, agricultural equipment and business-to-business sales are excluded from various statutes.
Where US laws are actually in force
The Repair Association counts ten states with enacted right-to-repair laws, with active legislation in 29 states. The electronics-focused laws that matter most for consumers are these.
| State | Law | Status and effective date | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | Digital Fair Repair Act | In force, 28 December 2023 | Consumer electronics sold after 1 July 2023; excludes B2B and government sales |
| Minnesota | Minn. Stat. § 325E.72 (SF 2744) | In force, 1 July 2024 | Broad consumer electronics; exempts game consoles, motor vehicles, medical devices, farm equipment |
| California | SB 244 | In force, 1 July 2024 | Parts and documentation for 3 years on devices $50–99.99, 7 years on devices $100+ |
| Oregon | SB 1596 | In force, 1 January 2025 | Consumer electronics; first US law restricting parts pairing |
| Colorado | HB24-1121 | In force, 1 January 2026 | Broad digital electronics including appliances; includes parts pairing restrictions |
| Washington | HB 1483 (RCW 19.415) | Enacted 2024 | Consumer electronics and appliances |
| Texas | 2025 session | Enacted; applies to devices sold after September 2025 | Consumer electronics priced above $50 |
Colorado also passed earlier sector-specific laws covering powered wheelchairs in 2022 and agricultural equipment in 2023. Massachusetts remains the outlier: its 2012 automotive repair law is in force, but the 2020 ballot measure extending it to wireless telematics data has been tied up in litigation for years, which is a useful reminder that passing a law and enforcing one are different things. This summary draws on PIRG’s right-to-repair campaign tracker and The Repair Association.
There is no federal US right-to-repair statute. Bills have been introduced repeatedly and none has passed.
The EU: two separate sets of rules
Europe has moved on two fronts at once, and they are frequently conflated.
The Right to Repair Directive
Directive (EU) 2024/1799 was adopted on 13 June 2024 and entered into force on 30 July 2024. Member states must transpose it into national law by 31 July 2026, and the amendments to consumer sales law apply only to contracts concluded after that date. Because it is a directive rather than a regulation, the operative rules are the national implementations, and those are still landing across the bloc.
Its substantive provisions are worth knowing precisely:
- Manufacturers must repair goods on consumer request where EU law sets repairability requirements for that product category, within a reasonable time and at a price that does not discourage repair.
- Manufacturers may not use contractual clauses, hardware techniques or software techniques that impede repair, including techniques that block the use of compatible or refurbished spare parts, unless justified by a legitimate objective. This is the directive’s parts-pairing clause.
- If a consumer chooses repair rather than replacement as the remedy for a faulty product, the seller’s liability period is extended once by 12 months.
- Member states must stand up national sections of a European online repair platform by 31 July 2027, letting consumers search for repairers.
- Repairers may voluntarily issue a standardised European Repair Information Form quoting price and timeframe, valid for at least 30 days.
Ecodesign and the energy label
Separately, EU ecodesign and energy-labelling rules for smartphones and tablets took effect on 20 June 2025. As CLASP summarises, these require batteries to survive at least 800 charge cycles while retaining 80% of capacity, spare parts delivery within five to ten business days for at least seven years after a model is discontinued, at least five years of operating system updates after the last unit is sold, and a consumer-facing label carrying an A-to-G energy rating plus an A-to-E repairability score.
These rules are already binding, and they are the reason exact battery capacities and cycle ratings for phones sold in North America are now publishable at all: manufacturers file them for the EU, and the data is the same hardware.
Canada: a copyright fix, not a repair mandate
Canada’s contribution is narrower than the headlines suggested, and getting it right matters.
Two private members’ bills received royal assent on 7 November 2024. Bill C-244, An Act to amend the Copyright Act (diagnosis, maintenance and repair), became S.C. 2024 c. 26. Bill C-294, covering interoperability, became S.C. 2024 c. 27.
C-244 added section 41.121 to the Copyright Act. It permits circumventing a technological protection measure for the sole purpose of maintaining or repairing a product, including diagnosis, and it applies where one person does the circumventing on behalf of another. The exception is lost if the person commits copyright infringement in the process.
What it does not do is equally important. It does not require any manufacturer to supply parts, tools, manuals or diagnostic software. It does not create a consumer right to have anything repaired. And the section addresses the act of circumvention rather than clearly authorising the manufacture or distribution of the tools needed to do it, which limits how much a commercial repair shop can rely on it in practice.
In short: Canada has legalised a defence, not created an obligation. Provincial consumer-protection legislation and any future federal parts-availability requirement would be separate matters.
Parts pairing, the quiet blocker
Parts pairing is the practice of linking a component to a specific device in software, usually by serial number. Install a genuine, working replacement screen, battery or camera that was not paired at the factory, and the device may show a persistent warning, disable a feature such as True Tone or Face ID, or refuse the part outright.
As iFixit describes it, pairing is effective precisely because it survives every other remedy. A law can force a manufacturer to sell you a part and still leave the part useless. That is why Oregon’s 2024 law, the first to restrict pairing, was significant beyond its size, and why Colorado followed and the EU directive addresses it directly.
The industry has moved somewhat on its own. In April 2024 Apple announced support for used genuine parts, with calibration performed on the device after installation rather than requiring a serial number at the point of ordering, and extended its Parts and Service History display to distinguish new from used genuine parts. Apple also extended Activation Lock to individual parts, so components harvested from a stolen, locked device have their calibration restricted. That last piece is a reasonable anti-theft measure and a new friction point for the used-parts market at the same time.
Manufacturer self-repair programmes
Both large phone makers now run first-party self-repair channels, and both are more useful than they were and less useful than they sound.
Apple’s Self Service Repair supplies manuals, genuine parts and professional tools, available for purchase or rental, covering iPhone, iPad, Mac notebooks and desktops, Apple displays and Beats products. Apple is explicit that the programme is intended for people who already have electronics repair experience.
Samsung’s Self-Repair programme, US-only, covers phones, tablets, TVs, laptops and major appliances, with parts distributed through Encompass and guides produced in partnership with iFixit. Parts carry a 90-day limited warranty.
The practical limitations are consistent across both: parts are priced close to what an authorised repair costs once tool rental and shipping are counted, the range of parts is narrower than the range of things that break, and a self-repair can affect warranty coverage for subsequent damage. For a battery or a screen on a device you intend to keep for years, they are worth using. For a subtle logic-board fault, they are not the answer.
Repairability scores
Scores are the market-side complement to repair rights: make repairability visible at the point of sale and buyers can weigh it.
France introduced a mandatory repairability index for several product categories, and iFixit reports that 1,192 products were listed within its first year. The EU’s A-to-E repairability score on the smartphone and tablet energy label, mandatory since June 2025, generalises the idea across the single market.
The scores are imperfect. They are largely self-declared against a published methodology, they weight documentation and disassembly steps heavily, and they cannot capture whether parts will still be available in year six. Treat a score as a signal rather than a verdict, and cross-check against an independent teardown where one exists.
What this means for you
- Before you buy, check the repairability score and the parts commitment. A phone sold in the EU carries an A-to-E score and a seven-year parts obligation. That obligation shapes the same hardware sold in Canada and the US.
- Replace the battery instead of the phone. Batteries are the most common reason a working device gets retired, and they are the cheapest major component to replace. A battery swap on a three-year-old phone typically costs a small fraction of a replacement.
- Ask about parts pairing before authorising a third-party repair. Specifically ask whether the replacement will trigger a warning or disable a feature. A good shop will tell you.
- Keep the original part if a repair is done under a pairing regime. It can matter for resale value and for warranty disputes.
- Recycle through a certified channel, not the bin. Every Canadian province and most US states run regulated electronics stewardship programmes, and retailers commonly accept old devices. Informal export is exactly the pathway the e-waste figures indict.
- Wipe and unlock before disposal. A device still linked to your account is harder to refurbish and may have its parts restricted for the next owner.
Frequently asked questions
Does right to repair mean manufacturers must make devices repairable?
Mostly no. US state laws address access to parts, tools and documentation, not product design. The EU’s ecodesign rules are the exception, since they set actual durability and parts-availability requirements.
Does using a third-party repair void my warranty?
Not automatically in the US, where the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act limits tie-in requirements, and not automatically in Canada or the EU either. A manufacturer can decline to cover damage caused by the repair, which is different from voiding the whole warranty.
Is Canada’s law a real right to repair?
It is a real and useful change to copyright law, but it is not a repair mandate. It removes a legal barrier to circumventing digital locks for repair. It does not require anyone to sell you a part.
Why are official parts so expensive?
Partly genuine cost, partly the absence of any legal ceiling. Right-to-repair statutes typically require fair and reasonable terms without defining a price, and that language has not yet been meaningfully tested in court.
Is recycling e-waste actually effective?
Formal recycling recovers a substantial share of metals, but the figures show most e-waste never reaches it, and recovery of rare earth elements remains close to negligible at 1% of demand. Extending a device’s life beats recycling it on every measure.
Where this is heading
The direction of travel is clear even though progress is uneven. Five years ago no US state had an electronics repair law; seven do now, several with parts-pairing restrictions attached. The EU has a binding durability regime for phones and a repair directive that member states must implement by 31 July 2026. Canada has cleared a copyright obstacle that stood for over a decade.
What has not changed is the underlying number. E-waste is still growing roughly five times faster than documented recycling, and no law currently in force is aimed at that gap directly. The measures that would close it, cheaper parts, longer software support, and designs that do not require a heat gun to open, are only partly addressed by the rules on the books. The most effective thing an individual can do remains unglamorous: keep the device you have working for another year or two.
Sources
- UNITAR — Global E-waste Monitor 2024: Electronic Waste Rising Five Times Faster than Documented E-waste Recycling
- The Global E-waste Monitor
- EUR-Lex — Directive (EU) 2024/1799 on common rules promoting the repair of goods
- CLASP — New European Union Rules for Sustainable Mobile Devices Now in Effect
- Parliament of Canada — Bill C-244, An Act to amend the Copyright Act (diagnosis, maintenance and repair)
- Justice Laws Canada — Copyright Act, section 41.121
- PIRG — Right to Repair campaign
- The Repair Association — Stand Up for Repair
- iFixit — Right to Repair introduction
- Apple Newsroom — Apple to expand repair options with support for used genuine parts
- Apple Support — Self Service Repair
- Samsung US — Self-Repair
Image credit: Photo: Dmelow — CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
