The use of reinforced polymers has gained increasing significance in the past few decades in several important manufacturing sectors. In particular, carbon-fiber reinforced composites (CFRCs) have been successfully employed in different manufacturing areas that include transportation (automotive, aerospace), construction (building and infrastructures, wind turbines) and consumer/sporting goods, due to their lighter weight, excellent mechanical properties and intrinsically better chemical resistance with respect to metals. At present, CFRC waste management is typically based on landfill disposal or incineration, with high environmental impact and loss of residual value of products and materials. As a result, the development of more cost effective and sustainable strategies for CFRC waste management is nowadays of increasing importance.Based on this scenario and considering the high economic value of CFRCs, the development of appropriate CFRC de/remanufacturing approaches appears necessary to provide direct access to cheaper CFs for second-generation applications, thus enabling economically and environmentally profitable routes for the widespread diffusion of CFRC components on a global market scale. In this respect, the implementation of new approaches to incorporate intrinsic and predictive remanufacturing functionalities in CFRCs at the material design stage seems to override the development of optimal polymer-specific recycling technologies in order to ultimately enable a virtuous circular-economy approach in the CFRC field where successful recovery and reuse of both matrix material and CFs can be accomplished.