According to Article 7 second paragraph of the WEEE-Directive certain reuse, recycling and recovery targets have to be met for different categories. According to paragraph 3 of the same article an accurate documentation on the mass of electrical and electronic equipment including their components, used materials and substances has to be in place. The mass flows have to be measured when entering (input) and leaving (output) the treatment facility and/or when entering (input) the recovery or recycling facility.

An ideal monitoring of reuse, recycling and recovery rates controls all significant in- and output streams from the collection of WEEE to its actual recycling or recovery as well as material streams that leave the system boundaries. Considering existing methodological problems and practical hindrances for the monitoring of product and material streams in the collection and treatment system the focus of the study lies on the development of a simple monitoring structure including an easy-to-implement process for the identification of recycling and recovery rates of the individual material fractions. The coefficients (together with the mass data) have the function to enable the calculation of the recycling and recovery rates and to reduce the administrative efforts to such a minimum that the requirements of the Directive are still met.

This abstract intends to give a first overview on the project and its main tasks. The projects partners named below are available for further exchange and more detailed questions.