Shaping the future of e-waste in the EU: Imaginaries, actors, and interests

The paper published in the Journal of Entwicklungspolitik maps three competing imaginaries—recycling, circularity, and sufficiency—that guide policy and industry approaches to European electronic waste. It demonstrates how these distinct visions reflect fundamentally different assumptions about economic organization, actor power, and pathways for sustainability. Ultimately, the study reveals that while recycling and circularity focus on system optimization,genuine transformation requires tackling the root drivers of e-waste generation and global burden-shifting.

Read the full paper here.