Recycling

Abstract

Abstract With changes in consumption patterns, complex industrial products (e.g., automobiles, cellular phones, and computers) are beginning to account for an increased fraction of the solid waste generated. Hence, the scope of the recycling industry, which was limited to simple products that are made of steel, glass, and some types of plastics in the past, has been expanding to include the recycling of such complex industrial products. With the expanding scope and size of the recycling industry, operations research (OR) tools and techniques are increasingly being utilized for the optimization of recycling operations and the underlying reverse supply chain (RSC) systems. This article begins by highlighting some of the practical issues encountered in recycling practice that create unique modeling challenges for the design and operation of underlying RSC systems. Then, a brief review of the related OR literature on important planning and control problems that are encountered in the context of RSC systems is presented. By focusing on a pricing problem that arises in the context of end‐of‐life vehicle recycling, the article demonstrates how OR models can be used to assess the economic and environmental efficiency of RSC systems for recycling and to provide support for decision making.