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In the context of a circular economy, one can observe that (i) recycling chains are not adapted enough to the end-of-life products they have to process and that (ii) products are not sufficiently well designed either to integrate at best their target recycling chain. Therefore, a synergy between product designers and recycling-chains stakeholders is lacking, mainly due to their weak communication and the time-lag between the product design phase and its end-of-life treatment. Many Design for Recycling approaches coexist in the literature. However, to fully develop a circular economy, Design from Recycling also has to be taken into account. Thus Re-Cycling, a complete circular design approach, is proposed. First, a design for recycling methodology linking recyclability assessment to product design guidelines is proposed. Then, a design from recycling methodology is developed to assess the convenience of using secondary raw materials in the design phase. The recyclability of a smartphone and the convenience of using recycled materials in a new cycle are both analyzed to demonstrate our proposal. The Fairphone 2® and its treatment by the WEEE French takeback scheme are used as a case study.

Efficiency indicators have been frequently used to assess end-of-life chain performance, mostly. In terms of the percentage of mass sent to re-use, recycling, and/or energy recovery facilities. While legislation gives a standard definition for recycling and recovery rates, stakeholders sometimes redefine them to better fit their own scopes and objectives. Therefore, to accurately interpret the results of an efficiency indicator, during a decision-making process, it's necessary to fully understand the scope 2 definition used to calculate it. This work discusses the influence of scope definition when establishing performance rates. It does this by introducing further alternative scope definitions and comparing them to those defined by legislation and stakeholders. As a case study, the proposed complementary scopes are applied to the recycling chain of flat panel displays in France.

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