Logistics for Electronics End-of-life Disposal

摘要

Increasing environmental concerns about the disposal of mass produced products have resulted in efforts to take back end-of-life consumer products. This, along with shrinking landfill capacity and the reluctance of communities to open new waste sinks, underscores the importance of developing methods and models for the management of end-of-life materials and products. This paper reports a study of the structure of reverse distribution channels for recycling of electronics products. A framework is developed and the economics of electronics recycling are modeled from the viewpoints of the generators, recyclers, and material processors separately. Mathematical programming models, representative of the many ways in which the recycling industry currently operates, have been proposed, along with numerical illustration. These models can be used by material sources, recyclers and processors for optimizing recycling operations and thus contribute towards the economic sustainability of electronics recycling.