ETIRA supports ‘right to repair’ protest

May 28, 2021

A protest which took place on the streets of Brussels this week has been praised by ETIRA for raising awareness of the right to repair.

The demonstration, organized by the European Right to Repair campaign, saw protesters pile end-of-life printers in front of the European Commission while MEPs and members of the media watched on.

The event aimed to raise awareness ‘about the Commission’s continued inaction on this iconic destined to fail product [printers]…”

The European Right to Repair campaign said: “The European Commission’s flagship Circular Economy Action Plan, adopted in March 2020, has set out to address the entire life cycle of products and tackle their premature obsolescence notably by promoting the right to repair for ICT products.

“The Commission had rightfully identified printers as a particularly wasteful product, and committed to tackle them by means of a dedicated regulatory instrument “unless the sector reaches an ambitious voluntary agreement” by September 2020.”

Commenting on the fact that nearly one year later, the discussions on the voluntary agreement have not yielded any tangible results, the campaign team added: “We need strong regulatory action now.”

Chloé Mikolajczak, campaigner for the Right to Repair campaign, added: “Printers are one of the most iconic examples of premature obsolescence and some of the least repairable products brought to community repair events. According to data from the Open Repair Alliance, only 37% of printers get repaired at events, while 33% are deemed end of life.”

Javier Martinez, President of ETIRA said:  “ETIRA supports the call for a Right to Repair. Remanufacturing printer cartridges and printers is textbook reuse and could create thousands of new jobs here in Europe. It should be the no. 1 item in Europe’s Green Deal and Sustainable Product policies.”