The Second-Hand Route to Sustainability

The importance of reviving the repair ecosystem and revitalizing the neighbourhood repair-wala 

By Jaideep Chanda

A colleague’s electric kettle went kaput, and she promptly ordered a new one online, and the old one went into the garbage. I don’t fault her. Probably ₹ 300 was all it would have taken to get the heating element replaced, being a common fault, but herein lies the problem. The effort she would take to locate a ‘repair-wala’, have it sent, and then collect would have possibly cost her more than she spent on the new kettle. Provided he had the correct spares. This is one of the reasons why consumers prefer to repair only high-cost white goods like refrigerators rather than low-cost items. This has given rise to service aggregators such as Urban Company et al., which provide repairs for high-value consumer items but not low-value ones. This is also why the second-hand market for high-value items such as cars is more mature than the lower-valued items. 

So why does this matter? Goal 12 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to ‘ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns to mitigate the root causes of the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Growing consumption, short product life cycles, and minor repairs exponentially create e-waste, generating valuable and hazardous materials. It exhorts governments and citizens to improve resource efficiency, reduce waste and pollution, and shape a new circular economy. Per 2019 figures, only 1.7 kgs out the 7.3 kgs of e-waste generated globally per capita was managed in an environmentally sound way primarily due to a lack of regulations in developing countries where e-waste is managed mainly by the informal sector, usually in an unsafe way, thereby polluting the environment and affecting human health. So if we do not address the e-waste in totality, we will not be able to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns – a prerequisite for an aspiring multi-trillion dollar economy. That is why it matters. 

To its credit, India has undertaken several steps to actualise Goal 12, from operationalising the Right to Repair Portal; by notifying the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, promulgating the Vehicle Scrappage Policy 2023 and the Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022. These measures, amongst others, are being consolidated under the Government of India campaign called Mission Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE), which attempts to influence the demand and supply dynamics to trigger shifts in large-scale industrial and government policies to support sustainable consumption and production.  

Prima facie, from a policy analysis perspective, notwithstanding the actions mentioned above, a gap exists when seen at the microeconomic level. The decision to repair at the retail level i.e. at the level of the individual, depends on several factors. These include the cost of the item, the cost of repair, the availability of the repair-wala, the availability of spares required to effect the repair, the cost of sending and collecting the item to be repaired to and from the repair-wala and the usage of the item to the individual. Out of these, the lack of availability of the neighbourhood repair-wala is likely the most critical, followed closely by the lack of spares. This two-by-two matrix illustrates how the decision to repair an item is essentially a function of the item's usage to its owner, vis-à-vis its cost. Matrices of this nature are very subjective and will vary from person to person, place to place, and from item to item. 

The broad arrows indicate that no matter which quadrant an item is in initially, eventually, with reducing usage due to deterioration over time, all items would end up effectively getting junked and replaced, i.e., would have moved into the lower left quadrant. Some would end up in the second-hand market, some would be scrapped, and the rest would become landfill.  

Having seen the issues affecting an individual’s decision to repair an item and the Repair Probability Matrix, it stands to reason that there is a need to address the problem. 

The need of the hour is to revive the repair ecosystem and, in doing so, revitalize the neighbourhood repair-wala and integrate him into the ecosystem. The stakeholders in this exercise include individuals, sellers, repair-walas, scrap buyers and sellers, transporter aggregators (e.g., Porter, Swiggy Genie), and the Government itself. The resuscitation could be by incentivising repair shops as a separate category of shops with benefits or by pulling them into the formal sector by creating a Register of Repairers (maybe under the Right to Repair Portal), which would provide information about repair specialists and their specialisations to customers. Lowering interest rates for loans to purchase second-hand goods could incentivise buyers to consider this option. Repair hubs could be established in each city, like the ‘transport-nagars’ which have evolved on the outskirts for transporters. Cannibalisation of spares from equipment earmarked for being recycled by smelting or breaking down to core components could be made mandatory. The cannibalised spares could then be stored at the repair hubs for use as and when the items for repair turned up at the repair hub. Presently, many sales and purchases of spares and second-hand goods are over OLX-like platforms and on specific Telegram groups, e.g., audiophiles and amateur radio homebrewers. The private sector would also have to step in by aggregating repair facilities, promoting DIY initiatives and maker's movements. 

Many of these aspects are already in vogue in various places in the country at different levels. However, pulling them into the formal sector would accrue benefits, better knowledge dissemination, and democratisation of repair costs. While the Government has taken some steps to implement Goal 12, the ink is yet to dry on these initiatives, and hence too early to pass any verdict on them. The individuals and industries who use this opportunity to harness this untapped sector could be sitting on a gold mine. The key, however, would be to address the negative mindset over second-hand products.  

Jaideep Chanda is an alumnus of the GCPP (Defence and Foreign Affairs) Programme and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. from the Takshashila Institution.