The Reverse Supply Chain of the E-Waste Management Processes in a Circular Economy Framework: Evidence from Italy

Raffaele Isernia,Renato Passaro,Ivana Quinto,Antonio Thomas

doi:10.3390/su11082430

Abstract

In the last several decades, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) reverse supply chain management has increasingly gained more attention due to the development of an environmental awareness, the rapid raise of e-wasted products and the EU regulations. In particular, although the new EU WEEE collection target has not been reached by many EU countries, several studies show that an optimized WEEE wastes management processes could represent a relevant way to achieve economic, environmental and social benefits expected by the adoption of circular economy approaches. According to this, the paper aims to evaluate the extent to which the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislation are able to support the achievement of the targets defined by EU with a specific focus on the collection centers (CCs) which play a key role being the initial point of the WEEE reverse logistic cycle. An illustrative analysis based on the transition probability matrix regarding both the e-waste collecting performance and the distribution of collecting centers in the Italian provinces is illustrated. Furthermore, we have analyzed the presence of a correlation between the WEEE collection rate and the presence of the CCs in different provinces in order to better comprehend the role that can play both the investments in CC system and other soft measures in achieving the WEEE collection targets. Results show that the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislations are not so effective in supporting the achievement of EU WEEE collection targets at the national level, although some geographical areas and provinces outperform the EU targets.

Highlights

In the last two decades, an increasing environmental awareness has strongly influenced the relationship between production-consumption of products, environment protection and sustainability
The research, which has a basic descriptive nature, has focused on the role played by the collection centers by analyzing both the performance of the provincial collection system and the infrastructure represented by the provincial distribution of CCs in Italy in the period 2008–2017
The work has aimed to verify the presence of territorial divide about the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) collection at the provincial level and the presence of the correlation between collection performance and distribution of CCs

Summary

Introduction

In the last two decades, an increasing environmental awareness has strongly influenced the relationship between production-consumption of products, environment protection and sustainability. Based on the diffusion of green management approaches, great attention was paid by producers to the environmental consequences of production processes as well as waste prevention, recycling, reuse and minimization of final disposal of end-of-life products. CE is considered as a new business model able to support a more sustainable development by retaining, as much possible, products, resources, energy and materials. This could be achieved by reusing, refurbishing, remanufacturing and recycling products, materials and waste [4]. The diffusion of the processes of recycling and reuse of end-of-life products, supported by specific government’s regulations, has generated new economic markets and new entrepreneurial activities that are growing in many developed and developing countries [5]

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