Does WEEE recycling make sense from an environmental perspective?

The results show that throughout the complete recycling chain the sorting and dismantling activities of companies are of minor interest; instead the main impact occurs during the treatment applied further downstream to turn the waste into secondary raw materials. Within the two systems in Switzerland, the collection of WEEE seems much more relevant than the sorting and dismantling activities. When comparing the environmental impact of WEEE recycling with that derived from the baseline scenario (incineration of all WEEE and primary production of the raw materials), WEEE recycling proves to be clearly advantageous from an environmental perspective.