There are different strategies of how to deal with the problem of e-waste. Each continent has its own thought on the problem and try to deal with it in a specific way.In Europe, the most common is a five-step hierarchy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recovery, Disposal. The main purpose of this strategy is to extract the maximum practical benefits from products and to generate the minimum amount of waste (Wikipedia, 2010a).
The concept is presented graphically on the picture below: