Abstract—This work studies the two Reverse Logistics models used in European countries for collection of Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), compares their advantages and disadvantages and proposes a framework that helps the decision making process. The paper is articulated as follows. First, a literature review has been carried out regarding the two systems of WEEE Collection in the European Union: i.e. National Collective Scheme and Clearing House Model. Second, an integrated framework is proposed for managing Reverse Logistics in the disposal of electrical and electronic products and their components at the end of their lifetime. The proposed model may help in the decision making process of which collection system better fits the specific characteristics of a country. Index Terms—Clearing house, European Union, national collective, recycling, reverse logistics, WEEE. I. INTRODUCTION In the last two decades, the problem related to pollution and environmental management, gained much importance. The concept of sustainable development, defined as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [1] has become increasingly recurrent. In this scenario, there is an increasing importance of the so-called reverse logistics understood as the collection of resources and activities dedicated to the recovery and recycling of end-of-life products discarded by users [2], [3]. These considerations are particularly important when referring to the production of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), one of the fastest growing manufacturing sectors [4], in which technological innovation and market expansion continue to speed up the replacement process and the number of new applications of EEE. In order to address environmental problems related to the management of WEEE, starting from the '80/'90 some EU Member States began to develop specific national legislations. Based on these considerations, the European Directive 2002/96/CE entered into force on January 27 2003 [5], [6]. This directive was aimed to prevent and limit the flow of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and their components to landfill through reuse and recycling policies [7]. This Directive was revised with the publication of the Directive 2012/19/EU (entered into force on August 13, 2012) because of the increasing of this waste. Manuscript received August 2, 2016; revised May 23, 2017. The authors are with University of Padova, Italy (e-mail: marcos_dg@hotmail.com). To appropriately manage the environmental problems associated with the recovery of WEEE in Europe, Directive 2012/19/EU imposes a separate collection of WEEE which must be guaranteed by appropriate systems so that users can easily discard their electrical and electronic equipments. In this regard, the directive leaves to the producers the freedom to choose whether to fulfil their responsibility by implementing their own individual recovery system or participating in collective collection schemes or shared systems with other companies which are associated in order to reap the benefits of economies of scale. In the vast majority of European countries the most widespread collection system is of the second type. Collective schemes can be divided into two main models [8]: • National Collective Scheme; • Clearing House Model. Table I shows the current configuration and the actors in EU Member States and others, making evident a ratio of 2:1 in favour of the Clearing House model. In the next section a description of the two types of collecting schemes is provided in order to understand how they work. The National Collective Scheme will be discussed first. II. NATIONAL COLLECTIVE SCHEME In a nation where it is implemented the National Collective Scheme model (NCS) may operate one or more schemes: in the latter case they are not competing with each other as they are responsible for the collection of different categories of WEEE. For example, in the Netherlands there are 2 national collective schemes. ICT Milieu is responsible for refuse collection of IT and Telecommunications products, while NVMP collects all other categories (WEEE is divided into ten categories: 1- Large household appliances, 2- Small household appliances, 3- IT and telecommunications equipment, 4- Consumer equipment, 5- Lighting equipment, 6- Electrical and electronic tools, 7- Toys, leisure and sports equipment, 8- Medical devices, 9- Monitoring and control instruments and 10- Automatic dispensers). TABLE I: RECOVERY MODELS IN EU MEMBER STATES AND OTHERS Model Nation Clearing House Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom. National Collective Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Source: Authors A Comparison of Different Models for Collection of WEEE in Europe Marcos Dieste, Arcione Ferreira Viagi, Roberto Panizzolo, and Stefano Biazzo International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, Vol. 8, No. 8, August 2017 591 doi: 10.18178/ijesd.2017.8.8.1021