Fixing Fast Tech: Why Mexico Needs 'Right to Repair'

Open almost any drawer in Mexico City and you’ll find the same “graveyard” of devices: a phone with a swollen battery, a laptop that can’t handle the newest operating system, wireless earbuds that won’t hold a charge, and that’s just to name a few. Most of these products aren’t truly “end of life” — they’re “end of easy.” A single component fails, the repair quote rivals the cost of a replacement, and the path of least resistance becomes buying new.

That friction is not just a consumer inconvenience. It is a sustainability problem. Globally, electronic waste reached a record 62 million tons in 2022, yet only 22.3% was documented as formally collected and recycled [1]. The rest is stored, dumped, or handled informally, wasting valuable materials and increasing pollution and health risks. In this context, “recycling more” is necessary, but insufficient. Mexico needs a stronger upstream strategy: make products last longer in the first place. That is where the “Right to Repair” comes in.

The Problem: The Throwaway Logic of 'Fast Tech'

Electronics are marketed as lifestyle upgrades, but they are built within a system that often discourages longevity. Across the industry, manufacturers can restrict repair through a familiar playbook: limited access to parts, proprietary tools, glued components, serial-number pairing that blocks third-party replacements, and warnings that imply repairs will void warranties [6]. The result is a market where consumers may own the device, but not the ability to maintain it.

This has real environmental consequences. Extending a device’s useful life reduces the demand for new production — and with it the upstream impacts of extraction, manufacturing energy use, and global logistics. In sustainability terms, repair is a high-leverage intervention because it attacks waste and emissions at the source: less manufacturing, less disposal, fewer replacements.

The Solution: What Right to Repair Actually Means

At its core, Right to Repair is simple: If you buy it, you should be able to fix it yourself or through the repair shop of your choice. In practice, that usually means requiring manufacturers to provide, on fair terms:

• Repair manuals and diagnostic documentation

• Replacement parts and tools

• Access to software updates and error codes needed to complete repairs

• Policies that don’t block independent repair through digital locks or parts-pairing

Reducto frames the issue bluntly: The movement exists because too often “manufacturers control” what happens after purchase, making repair unnecessarily hard and pushing consumers toward replacement [4]. Right to Repair pushes back by shifting repair from a privilege (available only through authorized channels) into a baseline expectation in the marketplace. Importantly, Right to Repair is not anti-innovation. It’s pro-competition, pro-consumer, and increasingly pro-climate because a repairable economy is a more resource-efficient economy.

Mexico: Momentum Without a Legal Finish Line

Mexico’s Right to Repair conversation is growing, but it has not yet become a clear legal framework. A recent overview in Revista TyT notes rising interest across sectors like home appliances, electronics, automotive, and auto parts, with industry voices highlighting repair as a matter of consumer choice, fair competition, and more accessible mobility [2]. The same article acknowledges the common counterarguments — intellectual property concerns and safety liabilities — while recognizing that the topic is likely to draw more attention from the legislative branch [2].

From a sustainability perspective, Mexico’s timing matters. Mexico is already navigating the pressures of e-waste management, circular economy expectations from global supply chains, and the costs of constant device replacement for households and small businesses. A Right to Repair agenda would not replace recycling programs; it would strengthen them by reducing the volume of devices that become “waste” prematurely.

What We Can Learn From the EU and US

Mexico doesn’t need to start from zero. The policy direction is becoming clearer internationally:

• European Union: The EU adopted a Directive on promoting the repair of goods in June 2024, entering into force in July 2024, with member states required to apply it by July 2026 [3]. The EU’s approach is explicitly linked to sustainable consumption and building a functioning repair ecosystem.

• United States (state-level): New York signed the Digital Fair Repair Act in December 2022, widely cited as a first-in-the-nation statewide law guaranteeing access to repair resources for many digital devices [5]. California’s SB 244 went into effect July 1, 2024, requiring manufacturers of covered electronics and appliances to provide documentation, parts, and tools on “fair and reasonable terms” [7].

These policies are not identical, and each includes exemptions and implementation challenges. But together, they signal a trend: Governments are increasingly willing to treat repair as a public-interest issue  tied to consumer rights, competition, and waste reduction.

That trend is also cultural. At Climate Week NYC 2024, the Right to Repair movement emerged not as a niche activist topic, but as a mainstream climate conversation, with talks and demonstrations hosted at the Javits Center through The Nest Climate Campus, and a dedicated Right to Repair event highlighting how “drawer clutter” is a failure of circularity [8][9]. 

A Practical Roadmap for Mexico

If Mexico wants to translate momentum into measurable sustainability outcomes, it doesn’t need a perfect law on day one. It needs an actionable pathway and reliable agents of change with companies such as Reducto. Three practical steps stand out:

1. Start with transparency and access, not ideology.
   Set baseline requirements for parts, manuals, and diagnostics for priority categories (smartphones, laptops, small appliances). Make “fair and reasonable terms” the standard, with clear enforcement.

2. Address the digital barrier: software locks and parts pairing.
   Modern repair is often blocked not by screws, but by software. Rules should prevent practices that intentionally disable functionality after independent repair, while still protecting cybersecurity and consumer data.

3. Build the repair economy as a jobs and resilience agenda.
   Right to Repair should be framed as industrial policy: strengthening SMEs, extending product life, reducing household costs, and creating skilled technical work. Coupled with e-waste goals, it becomes a competitiveness lever  not just a consumer demand.

Sustainability Tool: Repair Is Climate Action

Right to Repair is sometimes portrayed as a technical or legal niche. It isn’t. It is a structural sustainability tool that reduces waste, lowers the need for virgin materials, and makes circular business models viable at scale. Recycling will always be part of the answer, but repair is how we slow the problem upstream.

Mexico has the talent, the market size, and the circular momentum to lead in Latin America. The question is whether we will keep treating broken devices as disposable, or finally design a system where fixing is normal — and sustainability is built into ownership itself. Reducto is one of the leading companies in the space and is looking to refurbish and repair more than 30,000 devices this year alone. The company is on a path to make refurbished the norm and change how we consume and understand tech.

Sources 

1. Global e-waste scale: https://ewastemonitor.info/the-global-e-waste-monitor-2024/, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/electronic-waste-%28e-waste%29?

2. Mexico context: https://www.tyt.com.mx/nota/buscan-impulsar-en-mexico-el-derecho-a-reparar, https://www.milenio.com/negocios/buscan-replicar-mexico-derecho-reparacion-autos

3. EU  Directive on repair of goods : https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/consumer-protection-law/directive-repair-goods_en

4. Right to repair Mexico: https://reducto.mx/blogs/re-blog-tecnologia-circular/right-to-repair?srsltid=AfmBOoqZnO8IUe4xTcxFidhKaCHp6Pvzm-YVQaGcph9ZjiMZWVEJdW0c

5. New York Digital Fair Repair Act: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-signs-digital-fair-repair-act-law

6. Common manufacturer anti-repair tactics: https://www.ifixit.com/Right-to-Repair

7. California SB 244: https://bhgs.dca.ca.gov/forms_pubs/sb_244_industry_advisory_english.pdf

8. The Nest Climate Campus at Javits Center: https://www.thenestclimatecampus.com/2024-co-hosted-events

9. Back Market’s Climate Week NYC Right to Repair event context: https://www.backmarket.com/en-us/c/news/right-to-repair-nyc-climate-week-2024