Electronic Equipment Collection Research Articles

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Collection: Challenges and Opportunities in a Developing Country Perspective

The paper examines the challenges and opportunities in Uganda’s Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) collection system. Data was collected through a questionnaire administered to 423 E-waste collectors and informal recyclers in Uganda and analyzed using the Partial-Least-Squares-Structural Equation Modelling approach. The study found that the system is facing challenges such as inadequate public awareness and infrastructure, and lack of Extended Producer Responsibility. However, there are also financial and economic incentives from E-waste collection and government taxes that can be used as an opportunity. The study suggests that policy-makers and waste management professionals should focus on promoting E-waste recycling behaviours by making recycling more accessible and creating recycling incentives.

A Bilevel Programming Location Approach to Regional Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment Collection Centers: A Study in China

As one of the largest markets of electronic and electric equipment, China has not completely established the formal recycling system of WEEE compared with the developed countries. As a result, China is facing the huge challenge of resource waste and water/soil environmental pollution. In this paper, according to the current regulations on WEEE recycling and disposal issued by Chinese government, the business model of the Chinese WEEE recycling system was designed, and a bilevel programming-based model was proposed to help the disposal factories to establish the regional efficient and economical WEEE recycling network. This model addressed the optimization of bilateral benefits of disposal factories and the third-party recycling agencies/stations. An experiment based on a regional WEEE recycling business data was solved by the NSGA algorithm to validate the proposed model. With the result, the proposed model was compared with the related studies on Chinese WEEE recycling network planning. With the comparison and the analysis on the experiment result, it was found that the proposed model had considerably stable convergence and optimization performance, which proved that this model can be regarded as a useful tool to the planning of the Chinese regional WEEE recycling network. In the last part, the future improvement of the proposed model was also discussed.

Assumptions for waste electrical and electronic equipment collection system evaluation

Assumptions for waste electrical and electronic equipment collection system evaluation

An investigation of the current status of recycling spent lithium-ion batteries from consumer electronics in China

Ever-increasing demand and production of lithium-ion batteries result in disposal problems. There is little known information about recycling lithium-ion batteries from consumer electronics in China, despite China is the largest lithium-ion battery manufacturer and consumer. To address this gap, this paper aims at investigating the current status of recycling spent lithium-ion batteries from consumer electronics in China, and to provide recommendations for improving spent lithium-ion battery recycling rate. Generation, collection and recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries were investigated using a combined methodology consists of online surveys, field investigations and estimations. The survey shows that although respondents have expressed their willingness towards recycling, most of them did not know where to send their spent lithium-ion batteries. Field investigations were carried out to trace the material flow of spent lithium-ion batteries in current waste electric and electronic equipment collection systems. It was found that the spent lithium-ion batteries are not included in current collection systems, as only few recycling practitioners are collecting spent lithium-ion batteries. Inadequate supply was found to have a significant impact on current recycling industry. Combining official statistics, survey results and actual throughput of the recycling plants, it was roughly estimated that less than 10% of lithium-ion batteries used in consumer electronics are currently recycled, while others always end up in idle or landfill. This study provides essential information on status quo of recycling lithium-ion batteries from consumer electronics in China including consumers' behaviours, recycling practices and estimated recycling rate. Further, policy implications were proposed with the purpose of promoting recycling rates of spent LIBs from CEs.

Methodology for computer-assisted optimization of waste flow

The paper reports the development of a methodology based on computer simulations with the purpose to support decisions in designing the optimal architecture of different types of selective waste collection systems and recycling systems. The design of such systems is a complex task which involves both a very good knowledge of selective waste collection system equipment characteristics and of recycling processes, and the correct placing of the equipment along the flow so that to avoid underutilization of the structural elements and to avoid bottlenecks which generate low productivity or even blockages. The methodology is applied for three case studies in which different types of waste flow models are investigated: hybrid waste flows (windshields recycling), discrete waste flows (waste electric and electronic equipment collection) and continuous flows (industrial and automotive used oil collection and recycling). The architectures of these systems are optimized using the developed methodology in order to increase usage degree and productivity.

The influence of residents' behaviour on waste electrical and electronic equipment collection effectiveness.

Government agencies have implemented regulations to reduce the volume of waste electrical and electronic equipment to protect the environment and encourage recycling. The effectiveness of systems through which waste electrical and electronic equipment is collected and recycled depends on (a) the development and operation of new programmes to process this material and (b) on information dissemination programmes aimed at manufacturers, retail sellers, and the consuming public. This study analyses these two elements. The main focus is to better understand household residents' behaviour in regards to the proper methods of handling waste electrical and electronic equipment and possible storage of the obsolete equipment that brings disturbances with collection of the waste equipment. The study explores these issues depending on size of municipality and the household residents' knowledge about legal methods of post-consumer management of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Poland, where the collection rate of that type of waste is about 40% of the total mass of waste electrical and electronic equipment appearing in the market.The research was informed by various sources of information, including non-government organisations, Inspectorate of Environmental Protection and Central Statistics Office in Poland, questionnaires, and interviews with the household residents. The questionnaires were distributed to daytime and vocational students from different universities and the customers of an electronic equipment superstore. The results show that a resident's behaviour in regards to the handling of obsolete waste electrical and electronic equipment can significantly reduce the collection rate, especially when the waste is discarded improperly - mixed with municipal waste or sold in scrapyards. It is possible to identify points that are necessary to be improved to achieve a higher collection rate.

Management of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Romania: A mini-review.

Around the world there are growing concerns for waste electrical and electronic equipment. This is motivated by the harmful effects of waste electrical and electronic equipment on the environment, but also by the perspectives of materials recovery. Differences between countries regarding waste electrical and electronic equipment management are notable in the European Union. Romania is among the countries that have made significant efforts to comply with European Union regulations, but failed reaching the collection target. The article presents a mini review of the waste electrical and electronic equipment management system in Romania, based on legislation and policy documents, statistical data, research studies and reports published by national and international organisations. The article debates subjects like legislative framework, the electrical and electronic equipment Romanian market, the waste electrical and electronic equipment collection system, waste electrical and electronic equipment processing and waste electrical and electronic equipment behaviour. The recast of the European directive brings new challenges to national authorities and to other stakeholders involved in the waste electrical and electronic equipment management. Considering the fact that Romania has managed a collection rate of roughly 1 kg capita(-1) in the last years, the new higher collection targets established by the waste electrical and electronic equipment Directive offer a serious challenge for the management system. Therefore, another aim of the article is to highlight the positive and negative aspects in the Romanian waste electrical and electronic equipment field, in order to identify the flows that should be corrected and the opportunities that could help improve this system to the point of meeting the European standards imposed by the European Directive.

Resource-efficient conception of waste electrical and electronic equipment collection groups

Critical metals are in great demand by the electrical and electronics industry, so waste electrical and eletronic equipment represents a significant source of secondary raw materials. Owing to low recycling rates and the concomitant supply risks associated with critical metals, the closure of the material cycles is highly relevant to the German economy. Losses of these metals occur from collection until their material recovery, along the entire disposal chain of waste electrical and electronic equipment. This paper develops planning criteria for the design of collection groups to achieve higher recovery amounts of such metals. The aim is to clarify what amounts of metals exist, both product-specific and on the market, how the dismantling of the products is constructed and how collection groups can be arranged with planning criteria oriented towards resource conservation. The analysis is a snapshot using the example of indium and selected products. A procedure is presented and findings identified which are transferable to various critical metals and to waste electrical and electronic equipment. The results show that grouping of products according to resource amounts and the dismantling effort enables forward-looking and resource-efficient planning of the treatment of every single collection group.

Collection Center Location with Equity Considerations in Reverse Logistics Networks

In this paper, we study a collection center location problem with equity considerations within reverse logistics network design. The aim of the problem is to determine the locations and the capacities of the collection centers through the planning horizon. For each time period, the decisions to be made include the location and the capacities of the collection centers, the amounts of products to send from each generation point to each collection center, and the amounts of products to send from each collection center to each firm. The problem has three objectives. The first one is to minimize total cost, the second one is to ensure equity among different firms, and the third is to provide steady flow of products to each firm along the planning horizon. The problem is modeled as a multi-objective mixed integer programming formulation. An implementation of the problem in Turkey within the context of waste electrical and electronic equipment collection is presented. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to observe the effect of changes in the problem parameters on the solutions. The analyses include changes in the fixed costs and container capacities, changes in the amount of supply and changes in the growth rate. In addition, the solution potential of the model and value of using a multi-period model as opposed to using a static one are investigated.

How to successfully implement extended producer responsibility: considerations from an economic point of view

This paper investigates the concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR) from an economic point of view. Particular importance will be placed on the concept of 'economic feasibility' of an EPR policy, which should guide decision-making in this context. Moreover, the importance of the core EPR principle of 'integrating signals throughout the product chain' into the incentive structure will be demonstrated with experiences from Germany. These examples refer to sales packaging consumption, refillable drinks packages and waste electrical and electronic equipment collection. As a general conclusion, the interaction between economic principles and technological development needs to be observed carefully when designing incentive-compatible EPR policies.