The recycling industry in the face of the EU right to repair regulation

The European Union's right to repair regulation is designed to tackle one of the root causes of waste: products that are discarded and replaced long before they actually stop working, simply because repairing them is too difficult, too expensive, or impossible due to design choices made by manufacturers.

Under the new rules, manufacturers of a range of consumer products – including electronics and household appliances – will be required to make repairs more accessible, offering spare parts and repair information for longer periods after a product is sold, and in some cases providing repair services even after the legal warranty has expired. The aim is to shift consumer behaviour away from "replace" and towards "repair", extending the useful life of products that would otherwise enter the waste stream prematurely.

Opportunities for the recycling sector

For the recycling and waste management industry, this shift will play out gradually but meaningfully. In the short term, it may mean a reduction in the volume of certain product categories – particularly small and large appliances – reaching recycling facilities, as more units stay in use for longer through repair rather than replacement.

At the same time, the products that do eventually reach end of life are likely to be more complex, having gone through one or more repair cycles, potentially with replacement parts from different sources or generations of the same product mixed together. This places a premium on sorting technology that can accurately identify materials and components within increasingly heterogeneous waste streams – an area where systems like PICVISA's optical sorting lines, which classify materials by composition rather than relying on assumptions about a product's original specification, are well positioned to add value.

Ultimately, the right to repair regulation reflects a broader shift in how the EU thinks about product lifecycles – and recyclers who adapt their sorting capabilities to handle more varied and complex waste streams will be best placed to benefit from the materials that do eventually reach them.

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