How Do We Fix It?23 Jul 2021

Fix More, Waste Less. Right to Repair. Sandra Goldmark

Our relationship with our stuff is broken. What was once fixed is often tossed into landfills. Repairs today are more expensive than the prices of many new clothes, gadgets, and household appliances.

The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but consumes about 30% of the world's resources and creates almost a third of the world's waste.

Large manufacturers restrict the repair of their goods by limiting the availability of parts and repair information. Their policies sparked a consumer backlash and a growing right-to-repair movement. This week, The Federal Trade Commission said it wants to give consumers new rights to fix devices and limit "unfair anti-competitive restrictions" by manufacturers.

Our guest, Sandra Goldmark, is a leader in the movement to demand better “stuff.” She doesn’t just want to help us clear away clutter—she aims to move us away from a throwaway culture, to teach us to reuse and repurpose more thoughtfully. We discuss her new book, "Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet,” and the case for a circular economy.

Sandra is a professor at Barnard College in New York and leads its sustainability program. She's also the founder of Fixup, a non-profit group that runs pop-up repair shops and advocates for making sure consumers have the right to fix the things they own— their stuff.

Recommendation: Jim is an enthusiastic cyclist, and is impressed by rail-trail pathways— paved trails that follow the routes of old railways lines— and the movement that created them. He enjoys riding on the 750-mile Empire State Trail.

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