Procurement to the Rescue of the Right To Repair 2: Chess Game To Future-Proof

While I'm a big supporter of the Right To Repair legislation, a friend in an influential position at DEP (former hire, elevated to my former position) asked the Zoom group whether Right to Repair Legislation should be their top priority.

Fair Use Review

I'm always on my guard against "Group-Think".  Here were 15-20 proponents of reuse, actively engaged in DEFENSE of repair.  What did we all have in common, and how could common thought become a weakness?

In a tweet later, @WR3A (World Reuse, Repair and Recycling Association, my Twitter handle created 12 years ago) I used the words "my one qualm with #RightToRepair [as a movement] is that it is backward oriented. Trying to take back too many chess moves by planned obsolescence which were already played [successfully, by OEMs]... Each new device developed or sold is the next chess game. I recommend government procurement contracts as the opening move."

Ironically, the Right to Repair twitter advocate who responded (a friendly fire incident, if I offended) responded in a quote tweet... "Made the move to influence government buying at least 6 years ago. Have the conference badges to prove it. If only it were that easy. OEMs have made sure that the GSA won't even consider buying used equipment. If only it were that easy..." 

[as if I'd dispute it? I've got them going back to 1990]

My point about Procurement isn't about government buying used equipment. It is about strategically wording FTC-backed warranty language on things the government hasn't even purchased yet. Backward Oriented, Exhibit A?

English Lesson: Recycle is a verb

Recycling is the present continuous form of the verb "to recycle".  Scrap and commodity are nouns.

"Recycled" can be either a modifier or a past participle of the verb "to recycle".  "Recycled content" (modifier) means that something made of steel is remelted and molded into something new made of steel.

Steel is rarely discarded or diverted from a landfill... But by virtue of the fact it has been remelted, it now has a "recycled content" label attached as a modifier.  "I recycled the steel" means it's still a verb if the subject doing the recycling is in the sentence, but in passive voice - "the steel was recycled", it becomes "recycled content steel".  Maybe I'm 6th generation steel recycler, and I've never even heard of someone throwing steel away in an incinerators or landfills.  If they did I'd pay for it out of the ash, it's always been a commodity to me as a recycler.  But even if I never pulled it from the ash or landfill, even if I came to your house and bought it, I've become part of a "waste management hierarchy".   How come my job is being redefined as "waste management" based on someone else stupidly throwing steel away?

Here's the slippery slope which lead secondary materials into a different category from mined ore, via lingo from the point of view of rich people, applied to poor people, who are assumed to be victims.