In recent years, the technological development of electronic devices has led to a rapid increase in the amount of electronic waste, not only in industrialised countries but also in emerging and developing countries, which is largely disposed of improperly and causes massive damage to the environment and people. The enormous increase in these mountains of waste is partly due to the phenomenon of obsolescence. On the one hand, planned or condoned obsolescence leads to faster wear and tear of important components and thus to an avoidable reduction in service life. On the other hand, the ever shorter succession of innovations leads to an increasing proportion of functional obsolescence because older and new devices and functions are no longer compatible. In addition to these forms of unsustainable development caused by producers, consumers are also making a decisive contribution to exacerbating the problem by disposing of fully functional technical artefacts. The phenomenon of obsolescence is accompanied by a decline in awareness of the possibility of repairing defective items and thus extending their useful life."

"Whereas just a few decades ago, repair was an area relevant to education and the concern for maximising service life was taken for granted, today these topics play no role in general education or in the awareness of children and young people.
This is where the RETIBNE project, funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation, came in. From March 2016 to March 2019, the Technical Education working group at the University of Oldenburg dedicated itself to the task of implementing repair as an educational task in degree programmes and in technology, AWT, Computing Science and work lessons at general education schools in co-operation with the degree programmes of eight cooperating universities. The didactic and methodological preparation of repair tasks for teaching should help to prepare students for this future educational task. Pupils should be able to identify and analyse sources of error in a professional manner and restore the functionality of technical artefacts."

https://www.dbu.de/OPAC/ab/DBU-Abschlussbericht-AZ-32720_01-Hauptbericht.pdf

A current trend in Germany is "do-it-yourself repairs". This trend has arisen from the need of many people to be able to repair everyday items such as hair dryers, smartphones or bicycles themselves. In response to this desire, numerous initiatives have set up open workshops such as repair cafés, sewing cafés, fabrication labs and maker spaces in recent years. They are places where consumers of almost any age can repair their everyday appliances. In some cases, they receive support from technically skilled people, but rarely from educationally trained staff, meaning that the open workshops can gain even more as places of learning through this project.
To ensure that repairing can also find its way into the subjects of technology and Computing Science, didactics experts from these subjects have now been systematically working on repairing over a period of more than three years in the project "Repair knowledge and skills as an element of technical and computer science education for sustainable development" - RETIBNE for short."

New teaching units and environmental education modules on the topic of "repair" were developed and made available. The aim was and is to utilise the desire and fascination of repairing devices in an educational way. Disassembling broken devices and searching for the cause of the defect paves the way, so to speak, for exploring and understanding how the devices work. This promotes a basic understanding of technology. Awareness of the sustainable use of everyday appliances is also raised among pupils and teachers alike. This includes questioning a throwaway culture, using appliances for as long as possible - where this makes ecological sense - as well as the knowledge and skills to repair appliances. The RETIBNE project, which received technical and financial support from the DBU, has thus made an important contribution to education for sustainable development in the subjects mentioned."

http://oops.uni-oldenburg.de/4027/1/retibne_tagungsband_online_r.pdf