The Waste Dive Outlook on 2023

The impact of industry consolidation unfolds

The waste industry’s multiyear acquisition trend is expected to continue into 2023 for many of the same reasons that have been driving it to date. Labor and supply chain challenges, exacerbated by the pandemic, have made it harder for smaller operators to keep up. Plus, increasing numbers of private equity buyers or investment funds driven by ESG considerations are looking to expand in a recession-resilient market.

At the same time, industry sources believe the number of new companies may be declining due to the high capital requirements for entering the market and the operating fatigue driving others to sell. If this trend persists, and existing players continue to consolidate market share (especially on the post-collection side), the question becomes if or how the cost and variety of services being offered will change.

Will this trend of ongoing acquisitions ultimately lead to notable changes in how material is being managed, or will it just direct the same amounts of waste to a smaller number of disposal sites? Will it lead to a modernization of collection technology and improved service, or higher costs for customers to receive similar service? And as the industry’s emerging group of mid-sized regional players continues to grow, who will they buy (or sell to) along the way? 

The debate over plastics comes into focus

Plastic is one of the most controversial materials in recycling right now, and 2023 will be a year that could further polarize the industry while possibly showing signs of viability for new and emerging business ventures.

One question to tackle is which types of plastic are truly recyclable. California is expected to continue its rulemaking processes this year to determine the recyclability and labeling of certain plastic packaging. Oregon has already issued its “truth in labeling” report as part of an ongoing extended producer responsiiblity implementation strategy. These statewide decisions could affect future markets for plastic packaging materials and spur MRF operators and haulers to change how they operate. The Federal Trade Commission is also expected to start collecting public comments in January on how to update its Green Guides, a document about how to market environmental claims without being deceptive.

Policy experts anticipate numerous pieces of legislation this year aimed at curbing, eliminating or regulating plastics. That could also include new EPR for packaging bills. State lawmakers are likely to introduce EPR bills with provisions unique to their state’s dynamics around recycling infrastructure, meaning there could be versions of bills that also borrow from the diverse provisions in Oregon, Maine, Colorado and California’s existing laws. 

Chemical recycling will come further into focus in 2023 through potential regulations and business decisions. Michigan recently became the 21st state to pass a law reclassifying chemical recycling as a manufacturing process instead of waste management. Proponents see this legislation as a key business opportunity and an outlet for plastics that typically go to disposal. Yet environmentalists say the technologies don’t cut plastic production and promote pollution in overburdened communities. 

Industry players are also expected to take advantage of new or shifting regulations to build additional plastic business ventures in 2023, especially as brands continue to make pledges to use more recycled content. WM’s acquisition of Avangard last year and Republic Services’ investment in an integrated plastics recycling facility in Las Vegas are examples of haulers betting on the growing financial potential of recycled plastics. Others are budgeting for major equipment and facility upgrades to better separate typical plastics and future-proof against swings in plastic commodity markets.

Evolving fleets and keeping them functioning

Major waste companies continue to commit to and work on a range of sustainable fleet goals that suggest a greater tide toward compressed and renewable natural gas by the end of the decade. And announcements about pilots or orders for other alternative fuel vehicles like electric trucks by municipal or private haulers keep cropping up. 

The Solid Waste Association of North America suggested this past year that, for now, collection fleets continue to lean on diesel and CNG trucks to power fleets. But it further advised pursuing replacements with renewable versions of these fuels once price competitive, while also investigating opportunities around operators’ “unique position of being able to generate both electricity and CNG from the solid waste that they collect.”

Meanwhile, keeping existing fleet assets up and running — diesel, CNG or otherwise — has been a feat of its own. But a shifting economy could help. Supply chain challenges in recent years intensified competition for new vehicles and contributed to lengthy delivery timelines. Similar slowdowns have beset fleet operators who want to repair trucks that are down, for whom parts and maintenance technicians may not have been readily available. Not having enough drivers has in some cases contributed to collection delays, but having trucks out of commission due to those repair limitations has also been a bottleneck. However, the coming year could see manufacturers catching up on those backlogs amid a potential cooling in the economy.

Environmental justice: Moving from plan to action

Activists in environmentally overburdened communities have been fighting against pollution for decades, and state and federal entities have started to catch up in recent years by passing environmental justice laws and directing more resources to the issue. Whether those investments have made a measurable or meaningful impact — and what that could mean for waste operations — could be a major topic in 2023. 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill in December requiring the state's environmental permitting process to consider the cumulative impacts on disadvantaged communities when siting certain facilities, including those for waste or recycling. This follows a related 2020 bill in New Jersey, which many in the waste industry consider to be the country’s most notable and detailed EJ law. Activists in New York hope they now have added traction to fight pollution in their neighborhoods, while policy experts think more such bills could be introduced in other states soon. 

Activists in Texas are likely to continue protesting what they say are systemic problems with the state’s landfill permitting system, an issue they see as a root cause of an illegal dumping investigation in Houston that the U.S. Department of Justice is leading. This year could reveal more details from that investigation — plus what it means for the DOJ’s role in future EJ concerns across the country.

The U.S. EPA has big plans for its new national office, opened last year with the intent of formalizing and prioritizing EJ concerns and enforcement, and hinted that more action could come in 2023. It’s also disbursing $100 million in funding for EJ initiatives through the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s too soon to know whether any of the grants — available to states, tribes and community-based organizations — will go toward initiatives involving impacts from the waste and recycling industry. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said it was important to offer funding directly to communities. “Those who experience environmental justice challenges know their community's concerns better than anyone else,” he said during a January briefing.

Adapting to unignorable climate risks and opportunities for resilience

Waste’s role in public and private sector sustainability targets has been discussed for years. But the impacts of climate change are showing up more in day-to-day collection and in how municipalities and other operators anticipate future risks. Just in the past month — on the heels of the third-costliest year on record related to climate disaster events — Buffalo, New York, and the Midwest experienced intense cold and snow, and California faced harsh flooding and mudslides.

In these situations, the disruptions to waste and recycling collection are real, given how disasters can affect individual employees’ homes and wellbeing as well as infrastructure at facilities. So too can hurricane winds and flooding wipe out carts, and snowstorms can result in trucks getting stuck.

Deliberate preparations are also happening. In New York, a proposed bill would compel the city’s Department of Sanitation to create an emergency and resiliency plan and prioritize collection in flood-prone areas ahead of heavy rainfall. Those challenges span all four seasons. Acknowledging the dangerous heat of summer, U.S. OSHA will continue to work this year on developing a workplace heat standard. Miami-Dade County in a recent extreme heat action plan said that, in the absence of federal and state action, it will pursue the nation’s first countywide heat standard for outdoor workers. And in Texas, Austin Resource Recovery has worked to try to secure a reliable air conditioning solution in its trucks to make them safe and tolerable for workers.

On the private side, evolving levels of sustainability reporting allow for discussion of physical climate risks. The nation’s second-largest hauler outlined future productivity loss risks it foresees stemming from heat, and potential harm from heavy precipitation at landfills.

Biogas takes center stage

The buzz around biogas is only expected to keep building this year. The results of big acquisitions such as BP-Archaea and BlackRock-Vanguard Renewables will start coming into focus, while multiple projects from other companies also begin to come online. Many millions of dollars have been committed to landfill and anaerobic digestion projects, with industry observers seeing significant untapped potential.

The sector is also closely watching upcoming federal Renewable Fuel Standard changes. They could have notable financial implications for new and existing anaerobic digestion and landfill RNG projects, while also playing a role in the alternative fuel vehicle market. This shift — coupled with existing low-carbon fuel standards in certain states, and growing interest from ESG-focused companies and investors — is expected to drive further investment in the sector. 

The climate benefits of capturing more methane before it gets emitted are clear, though it remains to be seen exactly if or how the current biogas boom will move the needle on organics disposal volumes.

Disposal is still a cheaper alternative in many areas and composting remains a less capital-intensive infrastructure option for organics recycling than digestion. Outside of regions with regulatory requirements (such as California, which is expected to ramp up SB 1383 enforcement this year), will investment and regulatory trends encourage more diversion of organic waste via systems such as anaerobic digestion? Or will a similar amount of organic waste still end up in landfills with more advanced systems to collect and monetize the RNG being emitted?

While labor pressures have eased slightly for waste and recycling employers, industry observers say that further creativity will be critical to bolster the sector’s workforce in 2023.

Hiring challenges existed prior to the pandemic, but health and economic turbulence — combined with a wave of acquisitions that had choppy integration periods — led to reports of service issues in many markets. December job figures showed a 3.85% year-over-year employment increase in the broader waste management and remediation sector, supporting anecdotal reports that some of these issues are easing.

"It remains a challenge, but on a relative basis, each month is better than the last month,” said Michael E. Hoffman, a managing director at Stifel who covers the waste industry. After an all-hands-on-deck approach, he said, "supervisors are out of trucks, whereas six months ago supervisors were in trucks.”

Hoffman said many of the industry’s biggest companies still don’t feel they are back to pre-pandemic staffing levels, but wage increases and other changes are helping.

"Some of the inflation pressure seems to be lower, going forward, than it's been over the past 12 to 18 months, which is going to reduce pressure to raise wages,” said David Biderman, CEO of the Solid Waste Association of North America. "If the unemployment rate rises this year, as is widely anticipated, that will mean a larger hiring pool for solid waste companies and local governments performing sanitation services."

How M&A and career paths affect recruitment and retention

While large waste companies are still working to fill vacancies there are also cases where they’re actively laying off workers.

Amid heightened acquisition activity and a tight labor market, local officials and media outlets have recently been calling out service issues. Examples from recent years include WM in Indiana, Republic Services in Massachusetts, Waste Connections in Virginia and GFL Environmental in Illinois.

Hoffman said it’s rare that companies can get the full picture of an operation during the due diligence phase of an acquisition. Service disruptions may occur because trucks or employees don’t meet the acquiring company’s safety standards. When the issue is with the staff, it can sometimes lead to double-digit percentages of what he called non-negotiable turnover.

"If you're a larger company, public or private, there's no way you can lower your standard for what it takes to be a qualified driver for them,” he said. "You're too big from a legal standpoint to take the risk of a driver that has a known performance issue."

Biderman thinks this integration issue may have peaked, and Hoffman said it was region-specific, with both noting that wider industry workforce efforts are having a net benefit. Raising base wages, enhancing benefits and offering signing bonuses have played a role in reducing the labor crunch, but they may not be the only factors. Turnover tends to be most common for front-line collection employees within the first year, making longevity an important part of messaging.

"If you want to retain people, they've got to look forward to something,” said Chuck Stiles, director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ Solid Waste and Recycling Division. Stiles said bonuses for seniority or tenure are something his union advocates for in contracts, but there are other approaches. He recommended "letting these drivers have some input — and mechanics, across the board — on their working conditions, on their workweek,” because “they know their customers better than any dispatcher or any route auditor would ever know them."

In some cases, companies or local governments have experimented with four-day workweeks or other flexible arrangements. Stiles said he is seeing more four-day workweeks than before the pandemic, as did Biderman.

This concept also relates to ongoing efforts to provide front-line workers a career path. That could mean offering commercial driver’s license training for existing helpers, as well as new applicants, or laying out opportunities for drivers to advance into managerial roles.

"Creating a path from the front line to a supervisory position for all candidates, particularly through a [diversity, equity and inclusion] lens, would be useful for companies and agencies,” said Biderman. "It's about having pride in the work you do."

Finding ways to evolve these programs, and broaden messaging about them, could also help attract underrepresented groups.

Ellen Voie, CEO of the Women in Trucking Association, said the waste industry’s share of women drivers is below the overall U.S. trucking sector average of 13.7%.

“I think the biggest reason for that is because people don't picture themselves in the recycling and waste industry,” she said, while adding that "we're seeing more and more women” enter the sector.

Voie’s group has seen a notable influx of interested women leaving sectors such as healthcare that were affected during the pandemic. School and coach bus drivers are also considered a prime applicant pool because of their safety records. In addition, Voie said she’s seen an anecdotal correlation between women who hold CDLs and also drive motorcycles, which could be a potential area for more targeted recruitment.

Hoffman believes it’s possible that women could constitute 30% to 35% of the front-line waste and recycling workforce within 10 years, especially as the industry continues shifting toward automated side loaders, which are a more attractive option for all candidates. He also said the industry is continuing to focus on other categories, such as veterans, and “all avenues are being explored.”

Looking ahead to automation and new contract terms

Beyond the steady push to recruit and retain more employees, observers are also following a variety of other trends that may play a role in the industry this year. 

One example that Voie’s group anticipates is possible attention from federal legislators on restroom access, a topic that is particularly relevant for routed drivers working longer shifts. Ensuring that workwear is inclusive of various sizes and body types is also another area for further attention, though Voie said this area has evolved. “Things are changing. We are seeing more women's-cut uniforms."

Stiles is focused on growing the Teamsters’ ranks and improving contract terms. Local unions have seen recent wins in California as well as expansion in adjacent areas such as specialty recycling or document destruction. Stiles said “you're going to see us concentrate heavily” on such areas, along with others that may be seeing new investment due to state and federal policy such as mattress recycling or infrastructure projects.

Another continued priority for the Teamsters is to make Martin Luther King Jr. day a holiday for waste and recycling employees. Stiles said this is the case in some private and public sector contracts, but the goal is to get that into “every contract, regardless of how big or how small.”

Hoffman anticipates further investment to transition from rear loaders to side loaders, which may also reduce workforce pressures. For instance, the nation’s largest hauler WM aims to reduce headcount through attrition, in part by investing in these vehicles. Hoffman envisions the industry reaching upward of 60% to 70% side-load collection, but part of this will involve moving away from “take-all” provisions that allow residents to set out unlimited amounts of large material outside their carts. Hoffman said this is a key focal point for haulers as they’ve assessed the profitability of residential contracts in recent years.

"The private sector has done a much better job automating than the public sector, and the private sector therefore has reduced that issue,” he said, while calling this “a point of opportunity” for WM as well as GFL, which has inherited many older vehicles via acquisitions.

For Biderman, safety will be an ongoing focus that may also be relevant to retention if employees don’t feel comfortable in their working environments. The latest federal data showed a slight decline in collection worker fatality rates in 2021, but SWANA’s data indicates that pattern may have shifted in 2022. SWANA is also monitoring budgetary factors and service needs in local governments.

"I think some cities will continue to struggle to attract and retain workers and those local governments need to compare their pay not just to the other municipal services within their city or county, but to what kind of pay is being provided in the private sector,” he said.

There’s buzz in the waste and recycling industry about technologically enhanced and more sustainable fleets, but what about just keeping enough trucks on the road?

Haulers have seen prolonged delivery timelines for new vehicles, with sources quoting backlogs or wait times of around nine months to up to 18 months. Existing trucks haven’t been easy to repair, either, where parts and mechanics are hard to come by. These barriers have in some cases led to service delays and potentially higher costs for operators in a pinch.

In the year ahead, some industry observers think that pandemic-era supply chain slowdowns will ease, and demand could fall if the economy cools, but skilled labor bottlenecks seem less likely to shift in the near term.

“In reality, the waste management field is really a transport industry,” said Bryan Staley, president and CEO of the Environmental Research & Education Foundation, which is conducting research on the management and maintenance of waste fleets, which have an average lifespan between 10 and 13 years.

Kenny Vieth, president at ACT Research, focuses on commercial vehicles, transportation and trucking more broadly. At that scale, Vieth said supply chains and parts availability have improved, but manufacturers still have a backlog. “On one hand, we're looking at very hot new truck demand. But on the other, we're looking at an economy that should cool appreciably in 2023,” Vieth said. While the interest rate environment might have previously been more attractive for big-ticket items, a changing economy could dampen demand.

Uncertainty in the economy could pause or delay some investments in growth capital, particularly among companies that are more conservative, said Michael Haines, senior vice president in power and utilities at First American Equipment Finance.

Maintenance bottlenecks

To keep existing fleet assets up and running, the recent environment has required operators to work harder when calling around to find parts, said Darry Stuart, who serves as a limited-time executive through his business DWS Fleet Management Services.

The labor side of the equation also remains a significant challenge, industry observers say. “There’s a critical need for welders and maintenance people,” Staley said. “And I don't expect that to get better, really, anytime soon, unfortunately.”

Stuart, who decades ago worked as a regional maintenance director at Browning-Ferris Industries (now Republic Services), said that it’s both a retention issue and a challenge of attracting the younger generation.  There’s no easy answer, despite the best efforts of trucking and maintenance industry groups. Some industry operators have considered launching their own trade schools.

It’s important for waste to be an attractive industry when it’s up against other fields that compete for mechanics, like automotive brands. It’s a “very small pool of people in a very big ocean of need,” Stuart said, and companies have to be willing to invest and to pay young workers more.

Considering solutions

Recent years have shown the importance of preparedness around truck procurement and maintenance. Against lingering supply chain issues, municipalities looking to work with outside haulers ought to bake more lead time into their contracting process, said Scott Pasternak, a leader in the solid waste and resource recovery practice for Burns & McDonnell.

Pasternak said conversations with vehicle manufacturers suggest they are “really taking a deeper dive into what's causing those supply chain challenges to hopefully deal with and more proactively address them to reduce wait time on products like trucks.” That said, “I think we're still we're still in the in the process of that working itself out,” he said.

Those troubles have led some haulers to look closer at leasing to bolster their fleets.

“The truck rental business is very much alive and well,” said Staley, noting significant growth in rental fleets like Big Truck Rental, which launched a program last year it said could help haulers “reduce service interruptions, preserve capital, and reduce maintenance expenditures.” 

First American Equipment Finance, which provides project financing for equipment leasing across more than a dozen industries, recently ventured into the waste sector. The firm looks for industries that invest a lot of money in capital and, over the last year, it has seen increased interest from waste management companies in financing or leasing their vehicles, said Haines.

Factors driving interest in leasing include the general growth of the industry, rising costs across the board, supply chain issues, long wait times from order to delivery, and changes in the rate environment, Haines said. “That's causing a CFO for the organization to evaluate other ways of doing things” and how they can best utilize cash and investments.

Vieth noted another benefit of leasing is that agreements may come with built-in repair support.

Having spare replacement vehicles on hand is ideal, Staley said, but it’s potentially unrealistic given the already strained supply environment. Obtaining used trucks is also not feasible because they’re frequently scrapped and sold for parts abroad so that competitors can’t benefit domestically, Staley said.

As for keeping trucks in optimal shape, having a solid preventive maintenance plan is key, Staley said. Strong maintenance will become all the more important as fleets further diversify with natural gas and electric truck types, he added.

Fleet professionals should always be on the leading edge with maintaining vehicles, Stuart said. Some of the challenges during the pandemic era could have been avoided had thorough, proactive and even creative practices already been ingrained.

“The enemy is not COVID,” Stuart said. “The enemy is complacency.”

State legislators are already hard at work crafting and introducing numerous recycling-related policies in 2023, which some advocates say are critical to accomplishing looming recycling and diversion goals.

Extended producer responsibility programs for packaging and other materials are once again a top priority for many states, and each year it has become increasingly common to see bills introduced. In 2023, more states are expected to introduce EPR bills that are also a vehicle for promoting larger circular economy strategies, such as recycled content mandates.

The debate over chemical recycling, also known by the plastics industry as advanced recycling, will continue to play out in state legislatures this year as conversations about how to handle waste diversion and recycling goals heat up.

A longstanding push to pass right-to-repair laws, which recyclers see as a key to keeping e-scrap from disposal, could also have its moment in 2023. States are also expected to handle more typical recycling policy items, such as bottle bill updates, debates over how to label products as recyclable, and how to reduce single-use plastic.

Focus on state actions is even more acute in 2023 because of general disappointment among recycling advocates in the federal government’s limited action on recycling efforts. The newly sworn in 118th Congress is divided, adding more uncertainty to the mix. Yet some recycling advocates are optimistic that the numerous recycling bills introduced last year, including two recycling bills widely applauded by the waste and recycling industry, will lay the groundwork for continued momentum in 2023. 

“Recycling is generally seen as a bipartisan issue” in Congress, which could help renew interest in the issues this year, said David Biderman, CEO of the Solid Waste Association of North America.

EPR proposals will get more nuanced and complex

States like Washington, Tennessee and New Jersey have already introduced EPR for packaging bills in January and numerous other states plan to introduce their bills soon. 

The difference this year is that states are expected to pursue more types of EPR bills that tackle the nuances of the state’s wider waste management picture, not just the mechanics of producer responsibility, said Kate Bailey, chief policy director at the Association of Plastics Recyclers. “These policies have to be built around an understanding of local infrastructure,” she said during Waste Dive’s recent recycling webinar.

California last year passed SB 54, which established EPR for packaging but also set up extensive recycling and reduction rate targets. States like Connecticut and Washington named the state as an influence over their own “EPR-plus” policies. 

Washington’s proposed WRAP Act would enact EPR for packaging and printed paper, but also establish recycling and reuse targets, enforce “truthful labeling” of recyclable products, and require scaled levels of postconsumer recycled content for certain packaging. It also would add a bottle bill program with a 10-cent deposit for a range of containers. 

Connecticut is also expected to introduce EPR for packaging in the next few weeks, along with other initiatives requiring minimum postconsumer recycled content standards.

“Packaging is obviously on everyone's mind,” but states like Connecticut and others are starting to see how connecting multiple waste management principles will lead to better long-term solutions, said Tom Metzner, an environmental analyst with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

Yet the same legislative hurdles as years past — competing stakeholder priorities, concerns over costs and disagreements over how much control producers should have over the program — won’t go away anytime soon, said Heather Trim, executive director of Zero Waste Washington, a main supporter of the WRAP Act. In Washington, haulers worry about how possible EPR bills could affect their facility investments, and municipalities and MRFs wonder how changes could affect their contracts. “The biggie is really the control and the ‘push me, pull you’ between the producers and the waste industry and all the other players. So that's a really, really big factor,” she said during the Waste Dive webinar.

Terry Webber, vice president of industry affairs for the American Forest & Paper Association, said stakeholder engagement on EPR bills could make or break legislation. AF&PA plans to be an “active participant” in EPR for packaging discussions because of the potential for such laws to affect packaging costs and material flows.

The Illinois Recycling Foundation expects an EPR for packaging bill to be introduced at some point during the session, and several counties in Minnesota are working with the Product Stewardship Institute to introduce a bill sometime in 2023. Webber anticipates under-the-radar bills will pop up unexpectedly throughout the year, too. “There’s always a state that surprises us,” he said.

High-profile support from state governors like Connecticut’s will play a role again this year, but such support isn’t a guaranteed win. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced she plans to introduce EPR for packaging legislation for the second time after efforts to pass versions of the policy through the state budget and the legislative process failed in 2022.

Patrick McLellan, policy director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, said in an email that the state should go beyond EPR to also incorporate broader bottle bill fixes and waste reduction tactics. “The state [must] develop a range of short, medium, and long-term options to fix the recycling market,” he said.

Chemical recycling could factor more heavily into recycling legislation

Chemical recycling has a growing presence in the broader conversation about how states should boost recycling markets, divert waste or reach recycling goals. Chemical recycling will be more frequently included in recycling and waste legislation in coming years.

Michael Alaimo, director of environmental and energy affairs for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, added that chemical recycling is a “need-to-have” conversation when states propose new recycling laws. “Chemical recycling is going to be a key component to increasing recycling rates and making sure plastic materials are able to be recycled,” he said, but arguments over chemical recycling’s impact on the environment — and what he considers “misunderstandings” over the role chemical recycling should play at all — could halt progress on bills.

Michigan’s governor signed a bill package in late 2022 designed to overhaul the state’s waste management priorities. The late-game introduction of a chemical recycling provision was such a destabilizing force that it nearly killed the entire bill package, said Matt Flechter, market development recycling specialist for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

The provision reclassifies chemical recycling as manufacturing instead of solid waste operations. The American Chemistry Council has helped pass such laws in more than 20 states, including recently in Mississippi and West Virginia, and will likely continue its work on such bills.

Though Michigan’s bill package has since become law, Flechter said it’s a lesson for future legislators. “I’m sure other states are wondering how [chemical recycling] could play into their own policy discussions now,” he said. 

Bailey says the chemical recycling debate is overshadowing more immediate recycling concerns, such as how to more effectively collect and process materials such as PET. “There is a need for new innovation in plastics recycling. However, [chemical recycling is] taking up too much room air in the room,” she said during the Waste Dive webinar. “Our short-term focus needs to be on mechanically recycling and collecting more of the plastics we know how to recycle today.”

New York’s carpet EPR law, signed into law in late 2022, is another example. The law specifies that chemical recycling is not considered a valid recycling method for carpet, but Gov. Hochul tried unsuccessfully to reverse that provision. 

Right to repair to gain momentum

The success of one major right-to-repair bill in New York could signal more bills than ever coming out of the woodwork in 2023. Proponents say right-to-repair legislation is a significant way to keep electronics in rotation longer, preventing e-scrap from disposal that can cause battery-related fires or pollution.

New York Gov. Hochul signed right-to-repair legislation for some cell phones and laptops in late December, allowing the public and e-scrap refurbishers to more easily fix electronics. It’s a move advocates celebrated despite the bill text being whittled down significantly.

Kyle Wiens, CEO of repair company iFixit, expects at least 20 states to introduce their own legislation in 2023 that “will likely be specialized” to target specific types of electronics. Oregon already introduced a bill for consumer electronics, while Maine’s targets vehicle diagnostic systems. Washington’s would handle appliances. 

Nathan Proctor, U.S. PIRG’s senior right to repair campaign director, told the House Rules Committee last year that about 416,000 cell phones are thrown away every day. Although a federal right-to-repair law could help, state-by-state actions can have an added effect.

The Biden administration and Federal Trade Commission have also suggested support in recent months, which supporters say has galvanized the movement further. Still, the movement faces major pushback from electronics manufacturers and trade groups.