When a person’s personal or home gadget stops working, the first impulse is to throw it away and buy something new. But there is a new movement which wants people to repair rather than replace.

The biggest reason for the Right to Repair movement concerns the environment. As incomes rise and prices fall, E-waste is the fastest-growing waste in the world. Every year, we create two billion tons of waste, and 99 percent of the things we buy don’t make it past six months. Electronic waste has created mountains of toxic trash that’s hazardous to people and the planet.

That’s why consumers and lawmakers in the US and Europe are fighting back using the burgeoning Right to Repair movement. It consists of a series of proposals from European environment ministers to force manufacturers to make goods that last longer and are easier to mend. Similar proposals have arisen in the European Parliament. And at least 18 US states are also considering repair legislation.

There is a growing backlash against products which cannot be taken apart because they are glued together or do not have a supply of spare parts or repair instructions. Companies are in fact designing things so they cannot be repaired in order that the public keeps buying more things. Some major manufacturers and tech giants keep repair codes secret, refuse to sell replacement parts to independent shops and inflate the cost of repair in a bid to encourage the public to buy new products.

This has forced consumer campaigners to complain to the EU Commission that firms are being allowed to keep control of the repair process by insisting some products are mended by professionals under the control of manufacturers. This, says the European Environmental Bureau, restricts the access of independent repairers to spare parts and information, which in turn limits the scope and affordability of repair services. The Right to Repair legislation will reportedly save resources and reduce carbon emissions from the manufacturing of new products. The movement wants products that can be fully disassembled and repaired with spare parts and advice supplied by the manufacturer.

We should be working to reduce needless waste but companies use their power to make things harder to repair while repair should be the easier choice and more affordable. Meantime, most people need to change their behavior when it comes to their belongings. It’s often more convenient to buy new things. Maybe people do not like to fix because they like to shop. Perhaps years of buying new have resulted in people possessing a throwaway mindset. It could be that most people simply don’t have the skills or the confidence to fix their things. But looking at the issue this way, one certainly wouldn’t throw a car away if all it needed was a new tire.

Even though many people have probably never done it, repairing things that still have life makes a person feel good, that something worthwhile has been accomplished.

Not everything can be fixed; that is unrealistic and provides no added value. But we are a wasteful society and it is contributing to a disastrous toxic legacy. When a person buys a replacement, it fuels climate change from the greenhouse gases released in the manufacturing process. Around one billion mobile phones and 300 million computers are put into production annually, and 60 percent of these devices end up in landfills.

Economies are built on an ever-increasing need for more things but that stands at odds with what’s good for health and the environment. If one doesn’t repair something and can’t find anyone else to buy it at a decent price, it joins the global ocean of junk.

Ordinary people can learn how to repair a lot of things but as people start fixing things, laws also need to be fixed.