End-of-Life Strategy - From Weight to Value

Abstract

Regulatory targets for collection and recycling are set to reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfills and to incineration. These targets are mainly weight based, which easily leads to recycling of the heaviest compounds of the products, or rather the materials and compounds most substantially represented in the products Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the whole world. In addition, the material composition of WEEE is very heterogenous and it is changing rapidly. Typical to these changes are e.g. increasing number of substances and materials in each product, decreasing weight of valuable substances and materials per product, and increasing use of composites and nanomaterials. Each of these changes has increased the challenges and complexity of recycling and of returning the substances and materials to reuse.