The QWERTY concept, a powerful concept for evaluating the environmental consequences of end-of-life processing of consumer electronic products

The QWERTY concept (Quotes for environmentally WEighted RecyclabiliTY) focuses on the determination of environmentally weighted recycling scores rather than weight-based recycling scores. The approach describes precisely what is happening in end-of-life scenarios from the environmental perspective. It is a very powerful concept in re-thinking the meaning of recyclability and the effectiveness of end-of-life scenarios in general. New in the concept is the modelling of the decomposition behavior of electronic products into fractions for three regular end-of-life scenarios. Results show that the QWERTY concept can quantify to what extent the primary environmental goals of take-back of disposed consumer electronic products can be achieved: reduction of material depletion, controlling potential toxicity and reducing emissions. Applying QWERTY also allows one to measure whether the proposed European Directive on Waste of Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) is effective in fostering these goals