Senate Bill 90, which is moving through the Capitol now, would undo some of those protections, raising hackles in groups like CoPIRG, the Repair Association, iFixit and more than a dozen repair advocates who testified against the bill in April.

The bill creates exemptions for technology equipment used in critical infrastructure from the state’s right to repair laws. The bill passed in the Senate 22-13 on April 16 and is awaiting deliberation in the House.

Groups supporting the bill include Cisco, IBM, and TechNet, a network of technology CEOs and senior executives, according to lobbying disclosures. They argue that exemptions are necessary to protect against cybersecurity threats and intellectual property infringement.

This is why we can't have nice things. On another note, the repair cafe sounds pretty cool. I get a lot of pleasure out of fixing stuff. One of my favorite repairs recently is with an electric mower that ran great until the battery gave out after a couple years. Rather than paying almost the price of a new mower for a replacement battery, I made my own out of LiFePO4 cells that now give it full power for the whole yard and last ~4x as long as the originals. That was at a fraction of the replacement battery price too.

The fun thing about fixing it, is now you've replaced the weakest link and you understand more about how the thing works. It makes it even harder to dispose of the item in the future.

Ya that’s lame I always fix myself

The best way to reduce waste is to stop it at the source. This cultural shift is long overdue.