EEB: EU TAKES ‘UNPRECEDENTED STEPS AGAINST THROWAWAY ECONOMY’

Smartphones will need to be more easily repairable under new EU rules that could bring an end to products that are ‘designed to break’. The ‘right to repair’ is just one part of a major new strategy hailed as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way we manufacture and use our products” by campaigners this week.

The European Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) was greeted by the European Environmental Bureau as “the most ambitious and comprehensive proposal ever put forward to reduce the environmental and climate impact of our products and economic activities.”

Welcoming the groundbreaking new strategy Stephane Arditi, the EEB Policy Manager for the Circular Economy said that the Circular Economy Action Plan can be a turning point for sustainability and climate action in Europe, which will hopefully inspire the rest of the world. It shows that the systemic change the people and the planet need is within reach.

Campaigners have long argued that the EU has a political responsibility to reduce resource use, as well as, the carbon emissions and other environmental impacts resulting from wasteful production and consumption patterns.

The strategy for a circular economy – where products and resources are reused or recycled instead of being thrown away – proposes measured to make sustainable production the norm. It hopes to end ‘premature obsolescence’, where products break or wear out and cannot be fixed.

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