In an effort to facilitate smartphone repairs, the European Union (EU) is taking steps to make self-repairing smartphones easier. Most phones these days come sealed, making repairs a challenging task.
Recently, the European Parliament revised an existing law that requires manufacturers and other companies to design appliances with portable batteries to allow consumers to remove and replace them easily. Many Android phone users may recall when they could just open the back of their phone to remove the battery if any issues arose.
By implementing such a method, users wouldn’t have to rely on specialized toolkits from manufacturers to pry open their phones for basic battery-related problems. In this regard, Samsung is an excellent example, as it offers self-repair kits that consumers can purchase to address internal issues with their Galaxy devices.
If this change is implemented in the EU, it would require Android original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including Apple with its iPhone, to incorporate easily removable rear panels on their smartphones.
The recent approval of new rules by the European Parliament, with a significant majority of 587 votes in favor, not only focuses on waste collection for portable and large-scale stationary batteries but also influences their design and production. The aim is to increase the collection of waste materials such as lithium batteries, cobalt, copper, lead, and nickel by 43% in 2023 and 63% by 2027.
Looking ahead, the Parliament has set goals for the amount of recycled content in batteries, targeting 6% for lithium and 85% for lead within eight years after the law is implemented. Now, the Council’s endorsement and submission of the new rules to the EU Official Journal are awaited before they can come into effect. Once approved, OEMs will have a period of three and a half years from the legislation’s entry into force to make the necessary changes, allowing them until 2027 to prepare.
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Bethany Wilson 
