A vision for the new millennium:

The promotion of sustainable electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), besides its obvious environmental value, will also proof economically beneficial as European manufacturers of cars and electronics are world leaders in benefiting commercially from greening of EEE.

This vision shall be made possible by implementation of the main research objective and innovation of the SEES project:

Development of sustainable, clean, cost- and eco-effective Electrical & Electronic System (EES) prototypes and dismantling/ recycling processes to increase the vehicle recovery/ reuse rate.

This main research objective will be achieved by the following sub-objectives:

• Sustainable assessment of the complete life cycle of the automotive EES
• Development of specific dismantling manual and Eco-Design guidelines
• Application to a new EES that will be partially prototyped
• Development and demonstration of new technologies for chemical & mechanical EES and plastics recycling
• Development of new dismantling and shredding methods, considering collection aspects
• Consideration of synergies with other recycling systems in a product- and material-oriented approach (e.g. WEEE directive, EoLV-directive, RoHS directive, other plastics/ metal recycling flows).

The proposed methodology, guidelines, software and prototypes will be a powerful instrument for supporting product development where strategic decisions concerning e. g., the selection of materials and the product structure are made.

The most important targeted user groups for the project outputs are companies of the European car electronics industry (EES manufactures, suppliers, and recyclers), especially management and design departments. However, also European policy makers will be appealed by the reports and guidelines.