Towards a Better Closed Loop Economy for Electronic Products

Taking into account recycling technologies and the development of electronic products towards further miniaturization and increasing complexity various ways are shown, how by improving the information flow the product?s last life phase can be made more economically and ecologically efficient. Both centralized and decentralized, product integrated information systems are taken into consideration. In an industrial project scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Micro-integration (IZM) in Berlin developed the information system IDEE. This system, where international manufacturers and regional recyclers work together, is described in more detail.