E-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, and laptops and phones make up a disproportionate share of it. The single biggest lever for reducing that impact isn't a new recycling scheme - it's simply keeping the devices we already own in use for longer.

Where a laptop's carbon footprint actually comes from

Life-cycle studies consistently show that manufacturing, not everyday use, accounts for the majority of a laptop's total carbon footprint - typically around 70-80% of it. Mining the raw materials, refining them, assembling components, and shipping the finished product all happen before you ever switch the device on.

What that means for repair vs. replacement

Because manufacturing dominates the footprint, extending a laptop's working life through repair - rather than replacing it - avoids that upfront cost entirely. Industry life-cycle assessments put the manufacturing footprint of an average laptop at roughly 200kg of CO2e - in the region of driving a family car from London to Edinburgh and back.

Multiply that by scale

One repaired laptop avoiding a landfill-bound replacement is a modest saving on its own. Multiplied across the millions of working laptops replaced every year for a fixable fault, the potential reduction is substantial - without requiring anyone to buy anything new at all.

Do your bit, without the hassle

Repatch exists to make the lower-carbon choice the easy one, not the inconvenient one. Book a repair, a courier collects your laptop from home or work, a professional technician fixes the actual fault, and it's returned to you - often within 2 hours - keeping it, and its footprint, out of the waste stream for good.