How often are laws like this really changed in a time window that benefits innovation? A flexible phone that wraps around your wrist - how will that battery be feasibly replaced? Again I’m all for repairing hardware and replacing batteries … I just don’t think it’s right to use laws to force a design … for health , for safety sure… but let me sell a cheap phone/device and let me sell a longer lasting device with replacement parts like frame.work… a market of choice is better IMO … I guess the EU just doesn’t think this way…
Looking from the other side, it's been decades now and we haven't seem much innovation on electric toothbrushes or beard trimmers. Except we're still stuck with a non replaceable design.
You'll see your flexible phone as the peak device for 5 years, then again will come the right to repair and battery issues.
Perhaps your point could be that there needs to be a process to get an exception from this law for a year or two if the committee wants to help some technically chalenging devices. But expecting all makers to do the right thing by themselves is unrealistic (and no, "voting with your wallet" doesn't help when a set of brand dominate a market and collude on the issue)
They use considerably less in terms of raw materials than they did 20 years ago. The same is also true even for apparently very simple things like soft drink cans!
Wouldn't the amount of raw material be sheer process optimization, driven by production costs ?
If they came up with easier to recycle designs I'd hear you, but the only industry I see having done real efforts is the plastic bottling industry, and it is still hands down one of the worse plastic producer, even considering recycling.
The reduction in raw material is from finding structurally sound ways of using less, both in the product itself and in the packaging. Yes, that's driven by production costs.
