Due to territorial expansion, national requirements for electronics manufacturers and importers to dispose of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) have resulted in considerable difficulties in establishing a WEEE reverse chain in Brazil. Adding to the complexity is the need to implement a circular economy (CE) in this reverse chain, an important aspect of a company’s external competitiveness. In this context, this study aims to evaluate the reverse chain flow of WEEE for CE and its action of recycling, reuse, remanufacturing and waste reduction of WEEE in Brazil by means of Friedman test and Simes-Hochberg multiple comparisons. It was concluded that, in addition to immediately addressing complex problems, the initial manager’s strategy was to take recycling and remanufacturing actions due to short-term currency revaluation. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.