Abstract
In order to secure valuable materials and to establish better circular economy practice, new legislation to promote recycling of small-sized e-waste including used mobile phones started in April 2013, in Japan. In order to consider appropriate methods to reduce material usage in mobile phone production, an examination of appropriate strategies in handling used mobile phone products is warranted. This paper investigates an analysis of material flow model for used mobile phones. Then, by analyzing the model, it tries to find suitable strategies to reduce the material consumption associated with mobile phone production and consumption. Although material recycling is an important strategy in Japan, other waste management options exist. This research indicates which factors are keys in reducing material consumption and CO2 emission, and establishing resource efficient production. The study concludes that “domestic product reuse” and “official recycling networks” are equally good in reducing the consumption of virgin materials associated with mobile phone production. However, in doing so, it is necessary to establish a system in which consumers can properly return their used mobile phones for recycling. Such an end-of-life waste management system can reduce both waste and resource consumption and the environmental impacts associated with increasing mobile phone production. Further research investigating the value of increasing the product reuse rate and the collection return rate for mobile phones is also warranted.
Highlights
Japan is not a resource-rich country, with most natural resources needing to be imported from other countries
Partial differential equations were calculated for seven parameters (Rn, Re, Rm, Rhe, Rcomp, Rreuse, and recycling rate” (Rr)) in Equation (10)
The results show that even if the collected mobile phones are dumped in landfill, this option is still better than a mobile phone “lost” in hibernation, since some limited material recycling can be applied to municipal waste
Summary
Japan is not a resource-rich country, with most natural resources needing to be imported from other countries. From April 2013, legislation to promote the recycling of small-sized e-waste started in Japan in order to recover currently unutilized but valuable resources [5] in advance of the enforcement of the legislation This legislation only focuses on the material recycling associated with consumer behavior with used mobile phones [6], where typically a certain volume of small-sized e-waste products/materials like mobile phones at end-of-life are re-utilized as second-hand products with the same functionality as the original products. This second-hand use needs to be taken into account in this smart phone era with increasing pressure on resource efficiency and scarcity.
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