Waste electrical and electronic equipment is the fastest growing waste stream internationally. Due to its physical characteristics, e-waste is a suitable subject for the development of recovery, repair, and recycling policies, prolonging products’ life cycle for as long as possible, and is an objective pursued by the specific mechanisms of the circular economy. From the point of view of economic development models, e-waste management is one of the areas with significant potential for the implementation of the circular economy. The circular economy is analyzed through a set of 10 indicators that can be found in the Eurostat database. In this paper, we focus on the relationship between two main indicators with significance for this topic (e-waste recycling and eco-investment) and their evolution in European countries. An econometric model regarding the influence of eco-investment on e-waste recycling in EU member states will highlight the impact of circular economy indicators and the importance of promoting the reduce-reuse-recycle paradigm, especially for e-waste. A panel analysis was performed on data from European Union (EU) countries for the period (2008–2018). The analysis uses e-waste recycled per inhabitant as the determined variable and eco-investment per inhabitant as independent variable. The results of the econometric analysis performed show that, although all EU member states benefit from eco-investment, there is a group of countries that have already achieved a high capacity of e-waste recycling, while others should increase eco-investment further.

In our days, a growing attention is paid to explain the influence of innovation on recycling. While many studies on this subject have been carried out, it's still needed for more investigations on measuring the effect of innovation on recycling. This paper is dedicated to measuring the intensity of the innovation influence on the recycling within EU member states. The methodology follows the next steps: visualization of data used, determining the stationarity of the time series analyzed, developing a panel model for 28 countries, applying specific statistical tests in case of the two indicators selected. After analyzing the models that resulted and applying Hausman test, the authors concluded that the regression panel with fixed effects is appropriate for our research. Thus, it is possible to show that the influence of the innovation on recycling is moderate and not instantaneous because there is manifested a lag of 2 years. In addition, the Fixed Effects model allows highlighting the heterogeneity that is present among member states. In addition, the authors concluded that the membership of the Euro Area has a positive influence on recycling and on circular economy as well. The article has several originality aspects: it took into account criteria that are not discussed very often as membership of Euro area; it has developed a model that brings quantitative aspects to describe the influence of innovation on recycling, it highlighted the heterogeneity existing among EU member states. Future research direction would be to consider including in the model some other variables as eco-investment.