Take IT back - European approaches for setting up reverse logistics systems

The paper in hand flashlights actual developments within the field of waste electrical and electronical equipment's recycling in Europe, as one of the most important IT-markets worldwide. In addition it gives an idea of some important aspects actually under discussion between, research, industry and policy-makers and shows some of the latest results of the Fraunhofer IML's applied-research activities. Starting with a short, but actual overlook over European legislation, it comes up with some of the first results of a comparative study of major European WEEE-collection-pilot-projects on the regional/community-level in Sweden, The Netherlands, Austria, The United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany. Furthermore, the paper deals with new logistic approaches for reorganizing the electronics-recycling -chain on the example of a big German recycler, covering aspects such as "How to avoid additional traffic?" or "Recycling information management".