Circular Innovation: How to Build Reverse Electronics Supply Chains – the Case of CIRC-UITS Project

Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and End of Life Vehicles (ELVs) are waste streams typically holding high potential in terms of embedded economic value. It is indeed usually rich in terms of critical raw materials content. Furthermore, entire components are often technically reusable, repairable, or can be remanufactured. There are however significant barriers to implementing electronics reverse supply chains, including several related to technical and economic constraints. In this context, in CIRC-UITS Horizon Europe Project, four pilots led by industrial partners are developed with the aim of defining electronics reverse supply chains in Automotive and Household equipment industries. Specific solutions are developed to overcome major barriers and enable the future implementation of such reverse supply chains at industrial scale. They attempt to overcome hurdles related to the low technology readiness level of automated solutions to perform components disassembly, struggles in designing products easy to be remanufactured and repaired, and mismatches between demand and supply of repaired and remanufactured electronic components.