BOSTON – Massachusetts residents dispose of around 8,100 cellphones per day, according to an advocacy group that is encouraging consumers to buy refurbished goods to keep used electronics out of landfills and save money on their holiday shopping.
Representatives from MASSPIRG held a videoconference event Monday, pitching repaired and refurbished technology as a greener and less expensive way to gift or to equip a home office or remote-schooling setup.
“This economic downturn isn’t some abstract theory,” Sen. Paul Feeney said. “It’s something that’s affecting working people in a very real way. The ability to purchase refurbished and functional products will go a long way in ensuring that gift-giving doesn’t just disappear for families that have been hard hit by this pandemic this year.”
Feeney, a Foxborough Democrat, is the Senate chair of the Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee, which in April endorsed a bill that would require the makers of digital electronics to make diagnostic repair tools and information available to product owners and independent repair shops.
“It saves money, it cuts waste, it’s good for consumers, it’s good for small business, and it’s fundamentally fair to allow the consumer the ability to repair their own products or get them repaired at a trusted local business,” Feeney said.
The bill (S 107) has remained been before the Senate Ways and Means Committee for the last seven months, as lawmakers have grappled with the COVID-19 crisis, a protracted state budget cycle, and negotiations on high-profile issues like police reform, health care, climate change and transportation financing.
Feeney said support had been growing behind the legislation, known as the digital right to repair bill, before the pandemic hit and voiced optimism for its prospects in the new session that begins in about five weeks.
“We lost a little bit of the oxygen in the room when the pandemic hit in the spring, but we really did get a lot more support this year than in years past,” he said. “We’ve kind of built it to a place where I think it has a lot of momentum to be able to pass, hopefully in the next session.”
MASSPIRG Executive Director Janet Domenitz said she feels like the digital right to repair campaign “just got $40 million worth of free advertising” from a ballot question voters approved earlier this month around access to vehicles’ mechanical data.
The initiative, which passed with 75 percent of the vote after a campaign in which supporters spent almost $24 million and opponents more than $26 million, will give independent mechanics access to telematic data for car repairs, expanding a vehicle right to repair law passed by voters in 2012.
“The words ‘right to repair,’ that idea has definitely come onto the radar for a lot of people through the ballot question, and of course this particular legislation is a bit different but still, I think there is this renewed sense, if I could make that pun, of right to repair being important to consumers in Massachusetts,” Domenitz said.
MASSPIRG is promoting an updated guide to shopping for refurbished electronics as holiday gifts.
The guide offers tips including researching a manufacturer’s record around durability and repairability, seeking out high-quality items, and seeking out retailers that specialize in refurbished goods.
Serge Verdoux of Back Market, an online marketplace for refurbished electronics, said it’s possible to get a refurbished iPhone 8 for about $250, well below the prices for brand-new smartphones that can approach $1,000.
Verdoux said his site aims to take the risk out of buying used by closely monitoring sales, offering warranties on all products and hand-picking refurbishers who must perform a 25-point check on each product so that it offers the same experience as a new one.
“More than 80 percent of electronic products end up in landfills because of the lack of recycling, so we allow these products to have a longer life, and reduce the amount of e-waste in the process,” he said.
