Circular Brussels: User-centric approach for a more sustainable system of reusing and recycling e-waste.

Circular Economy (CE) is a concept which aims at improving the efficiency with which we use natural resources, shifting from the current linear economic model of production and consumption (take-make-use-dispose) towards an economy where waste is a resource and is minimized through reducing, reusing (in a broad sense) or recycling. This concept has received a growing interest in the past few years, from the European Union but also at national and local level. Our Circular Brussels project aims to understand how open Brussels’ households are towards CE in the field of Electrical and Electronic Equipment. The project consists of three parts:
1. To identify the existing and future options for Brussels' consumers to support a shift towards a circular economy through reusing, repairing and recycling;
2. To assess the potential of these options (1) from the consumer point of view, through a Choice Based Conjoint Analysis (CBC) aiming at finding the preferred options for Brussels’ household when disposing of their used products and purchasing new ones (2) from an environmental point of view, through a Life-Cycle Assessment focused on existing and alternative collection and retail channels (3) from a business perspective, via interviews;
3. To include all stakeholders’ interests in a multi-actor multi-criteria (MAMCA) framework to explore the acceptance of the alternative scenarios.
Circular Brussels is a 4-year Anticipate project funded by Innoviris, the Brussels Institute for the encouragement of Scientific Research and Innovation, and runs from November 2017 until October 2021.