EUREFAS position paper on the Circular Economy Act

EUREFAS, The European Refurbishment Association, welcomes the arrival of a Circular Economy Act as a crucial tool for creating market demand for secondary materials and establishing a single market for waste, key elements in advancing the circular economy.

However, we wish to alert the Commission to a critical oversight: the first policy objectives fail to adequately address one essential pillar of circularity, product lifespan extension through reuse, such as refurbishment, of electric and electronic equipment (EEE). Focusing solely on recycling is not enough to make the EU economy truly competitive and a global circular leader because:

In many sectors, secondary raw materials will only benefit the manufacturing of new products outside the EU - such as EEE (smartphones, laptops, TVs, etc.);
Complete and clean recovery of raw materials, especially strategic ones, from ICT products during recycling is rarely achievable;
Improving the collection and recycling rates of e-waste without reuse targets is insufficient: take-back schemes for reuse are much more attractive for consumers than just giving used devices for recycling.

It is therefore essential that the CEA helps create sufficient supply and demand for refurbished products and a true single market for second-hand products before they become waste. It would fulfil all the CEA’s objectives:

Improve competitiveness: each product refurbished in the EU replaces a new ICT product manufactured outside our borders, relocating economic value and supporting local jobs creation and reindustrialisation;
Reduce EU dependency on imported raw materials, as fostering reuse lowers the need for new products that are not fully recyclable;
Improve e-waste collection and recycling rates: The priority for reuse is not competitive with recycling goals but complements them by enhancing the attractiveness of professional collection channels, thereby ensuring that non-reusable e-waste is reliably routed to recycling.The more refurbishers buy used products or e-waste from end-users, the more attractive collection becomes, and the more likely e-waste will remain within professional channels and be passed to recyclers each time reuse is not possible.
Reduce carbon footprint: refurbishment avoids the environmental impact of new manufacturing and achieves a significantly lower carbon footprint (e.g., 84–88% reduction for a smartphone per year of use).
Preserve purchasing power: refurbished ICT products are on average significantly less expensive than new ones which offer quality alternatives at a lower price point, thereby benefiting EU consumers.

Barriers to circularity in the Single Market also affect second-hand products

Addressing reuse is even more critical as the European refurbishment sector is at a turning point. While market penetration is increasing - EU sales of used & refurbished smartphones exceeded €15bn in 2023 and could reach ~€44bn by 2033 - European refurbishers face structural challenges:

Their business model remains fragile with low margins: consumers only turn to refurbished products if they trust the quality of repair / refurbishment and the price difference with a new device is substantial. Yet refurbishment is costly due to difficult product repairability, expensive original spare parts, cost of labour and several double-taxation schemes (copyright levies, EPR fees, etc.).
Collection of used products or e-waste for reuse remains much lower than for recycling, limiting the potential for reuse. This means that a lot of economic potential is wasted by premature recycling, when reuse would have been the more economically and ecologically sound option.
The current legal framework, designed for new products, adds legal uncertainty for refurbishment value chains.

EUREFAS’ four priority recommendations for the CEA

1) Improve collection and treatment hierarchy of used devices and e-waste

Local collection of used products for refurbishment in Europe remains insufficient to meet demand. Reasons include:

An estimated 700 million unused or waste mobile phones are stored in households across the EU.
Trade-in prices are often unattractive for consumers and too high for refurbishers;
Most collected devices either go directly to recycling or are collected in batches in unsafe and/or poor conditions, thus reducing their value and consequently potential for reuse.

Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/2585 of 6 October 2023 on improving the rate of return of used and waste mobile phones, tablets, and laptops provides an excellent foundation and inspires several of our key recommendations below:

Establishing collection schemes that soundly maximise both reuse potential and recycling rates :
- Improve collection proximity and timeliness : Collection schemes should occur as close as possible to the end-user’s point and moment of discard. This is essential to preserve the product's value and consumer incentive to return it, mitigating harmful disposal (landfills, illegal exports).
- Mandate sorting by a qualified professional to assess reusability before recycling for every collected device — enabling full implementation of provision n°6 in Recommendation (EU) 2023/2585 which suggests operators of take-back schemes to establish partnerships with reuse organisations to give them access to collected small consumer electronics. It would finally optimize recycling pathways through professionals as refurbishment facilities are already skilled at channeling non-reusable products to the appropriate specialized recyclers, significantly improving overall recycling rates
- Embed reuse criteria in logistics contracts: Ensure all contracts or tenders for take-back, collection, transport, or storage of used products or waste are designed to preserve reusability. Rules must mandate careful packaging at the point of discard, specific transport conditions, and protected storage until delivery to refurbishment facilities.

Set financial incentives for the return of both functional and non-functional small consumer electronics and e-waste. This reward—funded by eco-fees—could take the form of monetary compensation or vouchers for refurbished products. Applying this to non-functional items is crucial because:
- Many non-functional devices and even e-waste can be reused fully or partially (ie. parts can be recovered and reused in repair);
- It encourages regular return habits among consumers;
- It improves recycling collection for non-reusable products;
- It simplifies its implementation - no need to distinguish between functional and not functional ones, which would be extremely hard to implement.

Require public and private organisations to return used devices to refurbishers as the default pathway. For public organisations, the provision should be part of the “Public procurement act”.

Dedicate part of EPR budgets to public awareness campaigns about the benefits of take-back schemes and reuse opportunities.

2) Go further on product repairability

Measures adopted under the previous Commission mandate - such as Ecodesign requirements for smartphones and tablets, the Right to Repair Directive, and the Battery Regulation - are essential first steps.

However, further progress is needed to make product ecodesign a true business and environmental driver for repair and refurbishment in the EU.

First, many new provisions only apply to some products, and are fragmented across several regulations and may face legal uncertainty over the hierarchy of norms. Ecodesign rules could prevail over consumer law such as the Right to repair directive. We recommend the following:

Integrate in Ecodesign framework the reparability measures stated in Articles 5.4 and 5.6 from the Right to Repair Directive to ensure legal clarity.
Extend them to a wider range of products, such as laptops, in the delegated act on “Horizontal Repairability Requirements,” planned for 2027 in the ESPR Working Plan 2025–2030
Article 11 of the Battery Regulation should remain intact, as it is a necessary step towards more repairable and removable batteries.

Second, key provisions to ensure product reparability are still missing, especially for smartphones, tablets and laptops:

Mandate long‑term security software updates
- 10 years for smartphones; 15 years for tablets and laptops.
- Example: discontinuation of free Windows 10 updates risks making over 25% of existing fleets obsolete, no longer repairable or resellable, despite being technically serviceable.

Ensure easy removability of parts and ban unnecessary spare parts bundling to allow targeted and affordable repairs without collateral damaging impact. For example, in certain laptops, the keyboard, top case and battery are bundled, inflating repair costs (e.G. €580 bundled spare part for a 2020 MacBook Pro even for a simple top case replacement).

Formally ban part pairing and recognise the use of compatible spare parts:
- Prohibit practices that disable functions after third‑party or compatible part replacement (e.g., loss of sleep/wake or Touch ID upon screen replacement).
- Recognise the use of third party parts meeting equivalent technical specs and applicable safety standards to foster a competitive, affordable repair and refurbishment market.

3) Foster a Single Market for second-hand products, not just waste

Internal Market rules were designed for new products and do not provide a workable framework for professionals handling used goods. The previous Circular Economy Action Plan focused on reparability of new products but did not address structural legal barriers facing second‑hand markets.

A fundamental shift is required in our current Single market framework to be aligned with the specificities of the second hand sector. Specifically, the following legislations must be updated to clearly define and accommodate second-hand goods, ensuring they are not unnecessarily burdened.

Product legislation

The Circular Economy Act should go hand in hand with the revision of the NLF, in order to create legal certainty about refurbishers’ liability and second-hand products’ compliance.

Distinguish refurbishment from manufacturing and remanufacturing through a harmonized definition: refurbishment is a distinct, standalone process occurring later in a product’s value chain. Unlike manufacturing, it does not create new products. Unlike remanufacturing, it does not substantially modify or enhance a product beyond its original condition. Refurbishment involves testing and, if needed, repairing a used product to restore its original functionality, without changing its intended purpose or core characteristics. It may include maintenance or cosmetic improvements but remains limited in scope compared to remanufacturing, which involves extensive upgrades or full overhauls.
Establish a dedicated legal regime for second-hand operators and products: Legal obligations must be proportionate to the level of intervention. For example, refurbishers should not be required to carry out full conformity assessments or bear full legal responsibility, as they don’t substantially modify the device. Also, current distributor obligations are also outdated because they are tailored for the first sale of a product: second-hand operators often lack access to original technical documentation and cannot always provide all product information distributors are required to provide.

Refurbishers can reasonably be held accountable for:

compliance with information requirements if the data is publicly available;
components or spare parts they replace;
second-hand-specific requirements, if adapted to reused products and noted that a lot of requirements applying to new products are not relevant for second-hand.

Waste legislation

Waste status related obligations are not adapted for collected used products for further resale and could create legal uncertainty about property and ownership.

Any collected used product, unless beyond any possible repair, should not be considered waste until assessed for reuse by a professional and not taken up by another reuse actor.
In the cases where initial assessment is not timely or inadequately made and to ensure all reusable products are not considered as waste, we also recommend harmonizing end-of-waste criteria with a reuse-first approach. These end-of-waste criteria should be applied at the point of discarding to capture the inherent value and reuse potential of discarded EEE at an early stage in the waste management process, ensuring timely and accurate sorting. In addition, assessment of end-of-waste criteria should privilege reuse: before a product is classified as waste, it must first be evaluated for its reuse potential with clear and harmonized criteria such as technical reusability assessed by a qualified professional.

EPR framework

While EPR is supposed to support reuse as a key pillar of waste prevention, current eco‑fees often apply to second-hand products if they are sold for the first time in a Member State, even if they come from another EU member State, leading to administrative burden and lower margin. This case often occurs in the sector: beyond imported supply, refurbishers often collect used devices from companies’ fleets from many offices across Europe. Such eco-fees can equal a refurbisher’s margin (e.g., €0.10 to €5 per laptop in France) and paradoxically penalise reuse—despite these fees’ intended circularity goals.

Recommendations:

Set a centralized EPR platform similar to the One-Stop Shop (OSS) to ease and streamline compliance by enabling economic operators to declare EPR obligations through a single, unified submission, cutting on high administrative costs. Such OSS would also facilitate efficient data sharing and enhance compliance, transparency and traceability across the value chain.
Exclude second-hand products from EPR fees when they have been originally placed in the EU market.

The EU copyright levy system often unfairly applies to refurbished products. This leads to:

Double taxation - as consumers might pay levy for the original purchase (when a product as sold as new);
Market Fragmentation & Administrative Burdens – National discrepancies in levy schemes across 22 EU member states create inconsistencies and unnecessary administrative burdens. Each Member State has developed its own system and particularities, notably in terms of costs, ranging from a few cents to more than 10 euros in some countries.
Barriers to the Circular Economy & Unfair Competition – whereas price is the main reason consumers turn to second-hand products, inflating refurbished devices’ prices with a levy discourages consumers from making more sustainable choices. From a competition perspective, refurbished devices are thus less appealing, favoring the purchase of new devices.

Recommendation:

EUREFAS urges to exclude second‑hand products from private copy levies.

4) Refine circular economy policy tools and EPR governance to better support competitive EU reuse sectors

Current EU and Member State legislation increasingly delegates responsibility for the circular transition to Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs). While their financial contribution (via EPR fees) is important, entrusting them with strategic and operational implementation is problematic—especially for EEE:

Refurbishment actors are mostly independent from manufacturers and outside EPR governance;
Manufacturers often have little incentive to develop this sector, which competes with their own business models.
Expanding reuse requires addressing the economic and legal barriers previously described - tasks that PROs are not equipped to handle and which require public policy intervention and legal changes.

Setting reuse targets for PROs without ensuring a viable supporting reuse sector is thus ineffective and partly explains why reuse is not yet widespread despite its potential.

Recommendations:

Revise EPR governance: reuse sector actors must have co-decision power alongside producers for all strategic, financial, or operational decisions impacting reuse within EPR frameworks.
Set specific reuse targets, separated from recycling, per type of products in function of reuse markets maturity and potential, and applying them to both waste and used products to enhance all device streams.
These objectives should apply to Member States, not on PROs, so that
- Global and coherent reuse strategies can be established by coordinating all available levers for developing the sector, such as tax policy, legal frameworks, training, innovation, and consumer protection. Those levers cannot be mandated at the level of PROs.
- Competition within the value chain must be preserved, preventing producers from being held responsible for setting objectives or implementing tools that directly impact their competitors - namely, reuse actors such as refurbishers.
Require Member States to develop economic strategies for supporting reuse sector actors and reach reuse objectives mentioned above, to which PROs could contribute alongside reuse actors.
Require PROs to allocate at least 30% of their revenues funding such reuse development strategies, including a specific bonus for each product collected and resold in Europe by a refurbisher.