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The rapid rise in the use of mobile (cell) phones, combined with their shortening lifespan, due to a high replacement frequency, are posing disposal management challenges at a time when mobile phones are the fastest growing component of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). In this study, 250 people in Liverpool, UK, were surveyed using...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... main occupation, 100 (40%) identied themselves as skilled workers, 80 (32%) as students, 40 (16%) as unskilled workers, 21 (8.4%) as unemployed and 9 (3.6%) as retired. Table 1 shows the descriptive frequencies of mobile phone use and other measures relevant to it. The other measures include how long participants have used mobile phones, the main reason for changing their last mobile phone and their opinions on the best management of mobile phone disposal. ...
Citations
... 26 Mobile phones rapid rise and their relatively short lifespan are posing disposal management challenges at the height when mobile phones are the fastest growing stream of e-waste. 27 According to Babatunde et al, most people consider this gadget obsolete in little over a year, even though they are still in right working conditions. 28,29 When mobile phones are considered e-waste by their owners, they threw them along with municipality solid waste from dustbins. ...
Electronic waste or e-waste is emerging as a major public health threat worldwide including Bangladesh because of rapid advances in technology leading to the generation of large amount of wastes and a lack of knowledge in handling of these wastes. The present review discusses the existing e-waste problem in Bangladesh, as a public health concern, and necessary recommendations to have effective e-waste management. This is a traditional review study. The burden of e-waste, regulations and its impact on health at the global and country level were identified using various search engines such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and ScienceDirect. Books, case studies, legislation documents, reports, original articles and other documents from international organizations and specific governmental agency websites were retrieved. Out of more than 100 research articles on e-waste and health impact in total, 45 original articles, reports, case studies and documents were used for this review. About 400,000 tonnes of electronic waste have been generated across the country in 2018 and that the amount grows by 20% every year. The generation of e-waste rate in Bangladesh has surpassed 72 million tons, which is a 33% increase over the previous decade. According to a study report by Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), e-waste volumes in Bangladesh will rise to 4,62 million tonnes by 2035. Harmful contents of e-waste mainly include lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, copper, nickel, lithium, Beryllium long term exposure of which may cause health effects like damage to brain, kidney, liver, nervous systems, blood systems, endocrine system, reproductive system and produce stomach cramps, allergic dermatitis, asthma, bronchitis and also develop life threatening disease like cancer. The current review shows that the e-waste poses a serious public health threat leading to significant environmental and health risks. Most of the developing countries including Bangladesh were found to be lagging behind in the implementation of environmentally sound formal recycling processes. Hence, a better life cycle assessment model which have been successfully implemented in other developing countries should be introduced in Bangladesh. JOPSOM 2021; 41(1):41-48
... Researchers have conducted numerous studies to discover influencing factors in the sustainable management of electronic waste (Speake & Yangke, 2015). In this regard, (Welfens et al., 2016) proposed that internal and external factors are vital for consumers' behavioral changes. ...
... They investigated factors affecting consumers' disposal behavior and concluded that environmental knowledge, social norms, perceived control behavior, and attitude significantly affect recycling intention. (Speake & Yangke, 2015) assessed consumers' perceptions towards the consumption and disposal of mobile phones through a mixed method, including quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results showed a significant relationship between socio-demographic factors and consumers' willingness to recycle obsolete mobile phones. ...
A large volume of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is generated worldwide every year. This consists of hazardous and precious metals and represents a significant portion of this stream. Governments must make the right decisions regarding the influential factors affecting consumers' participation in electronic waste recycling programs in Industry 4.0 era to minimize the devastating impacts of these devices on the environment and human health and to recover precious metals and resources. Using the decentralized consensus decision-making concept, the proposed framework in this study uses social media users' opinions to improve decision-making concerning the influential factors affecting consumers' participation through artificial intelligence (AI). Considering Industry 4.0 concept, 20,348,014 million posts are extracted from Twitter, Facebook (Meta), and Reddit platforms and are analyzed using AI techniques. Then, more than 100 papers are analyzed to list influential factors comprehensively. Finally, the aggregated factors are presented to the Delphi method for further analysis. The findings demonstrate that economic incentives are considered significant factors in developed and developing countries. Since the living conditions of developed and developing nations are different, their concerns are also different. Hence, socio-economic and socio-political issues are the main concerns of people in developing countries. However, proximity, ease of access, and other factors play a significant role in developed countries. This study is among a few studies developing a real-time decision-making system to improve decision-making using social media data and AI techniques.
... The second important question is what people do with the retired mobile phone once they replace it. We find that <1% of people discard their old phone in normal municipal waste (Table 2), similar to studies done in other high-income countries such as Australia (Islam et al., 2020), Germany (Gurita et al., 2018), Scandinavia (Baxter and Gram-Hanssen, 2016), and the United Kingdom (Speake and Yangke, 2015;Ongondo and Williams, 2011). However, only about 25% of people recycled their previous device or gave it back to the service provider. ...
Mobile phones are one of the most commonly owned personal electronic devices and they contain about 15 different metals, mostly extracted with severe negative environmental externalities. Sourcing metals from retired mobile phones, i.e. urban mining, could alleviate these effects. In this study, we analyse the viability of urban mining in Switzerland using a representative survey of 2,500 Swiss respondents and an experiment with 15,000 employees of a Swiss institution. We estimate that there are around seven million unused phones with embedded gold worth USD 10 million in Switzerland. People do not particularly value their retired phones: 22% do not know why they keep it, and 40% said they are willing to sell their old device for less than USD 5. We further find that while informational treatments do not change recycling rates, reducing transaction costs of recycling double return rates from 2.1% to 5.5%. Lastly, while urban mining is not economically viable if we only consider the market value of embedded metals, it is profitable when taking into account the environmental cost of producing a new mobile device with metals from a primary mine.
... The trend is especially more popular in Europe, as European customers demand newer, faster and better products. It has been estimated that about 27% of Europeans change their smartphone each year and about 60% of them change their smartphone in two years (Speake and Yangke, 2015). ...
We, humans, have invented many technologies in the past few decades to enhance our lifestyles. Some of them induce the invention of electronics like cell phones, better cooking apparatuses, plastics, and insecticides for better farming. These inventions are utilitarian at first look, but the other side of them greatly goes missing. We are still manufacturing tons of cell phones, whereas the old disposed phones are not properly recycled, hence they stay in the landfills polluting the environment. The toxic elements required to manufacture such electronics also have similar effects. Moreover, the convenient cooking apparatuses are coated with chemicals that are harmful to humans. Similarly, the insecticides, used for better farming are actually deleterious in the long run.
... Its growth rate of generation is approximately 4% per year (or 21% in five years), three times faster than other streams of waste [1,2]. Based on the current trend and growing Their short service life (less than three years) and high replacement frequency due to consumers' great demand for new styles and functions mean waste produced at greater rates [11,13]. Unfortunately, despite being the fastest-growing stream of WEEE, used mobile phones have less than 10% global collection rate [14]. ...
... These low recycling rates have become a serious matter considering the high value of used mobile phones as well as their hazards and toxicity to the environment. Among over 40 metals contained in a mobile phone, many of them are critical and scarce raw materials such as gold, silver, and lead [11,15]. On the other hand, obsolete phones that are not disposed of properly can release harmful radiation and environmental and health hazards [11]. ...
... Among over 40 metals contained in a mobile phone, many of them are critical and scarce raw materials such as gold, silver, and lead [11,15]. On the other hand, obsolete phones that are not disposed of properly can release harmful radiation and environmental and health hazards [11]. ...
... Smartphones were selected in this research as the EEE type for investigation as they: (a) are developed in fast-paced product cycles leading to functional and psychological obsolescence of older devices (Cucchiella et al., 2015;de Wit et al., 2019;Proske et al., 2016); (b) hold high production environmental footprint and short lifetime (Belkhir and Elmeligi, 2018); and (c) are prone to be stored at customers' homes after use because of their weight and size (Cucchiella et al., 2015;Speake and Yangke, 2015). On average, smartphones are composed of 62 different types of metals, including many rare-earth metals (Rohrig, 2015). ...
Public policies, incentives, and infrastructure are top-down instruments that can align stakeholders' roles and expectations for Circular Economy (CE) transitions, but it is crucial to analyse the possible effects of such instruments before implementation. This research investigates the Brazilian Industrial Agreement for Electrical and Electronic Equipment (BIAEEE) that governs the responsibilities and targets for nationwide collection and treatment of Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). A system dynamics simulation model is adapted for the use of smartphones in Brazil, and interventions focused on the collection of end-of-life products are examined against the BIAEEE targets. Twelve policy scenarios investigate three aspects of EEE collection: coverage increase, distribution of collection points and rewards. All scenarios show improvement in the EEE collection, but only one meets the BIAEEE targets. This research demonstrates how modelling and simulation can inform strategic decision-making in public policies for CE transitions.
... and Nchawa Yangke, 2015; Pérez-Belis et al., 2017), consumer willingness to pay for recycling or improved WEEE collection methods Afroz et al., 2013;La Barbera et al., 2014;Song et al., 2016), willingness to recycle WEEE (Saphores et al., 2006;Nnorom et al., 2009;B. Li et al., 2012;Dwivedy and Mittal, 2013;Speake and Nchawa Yangke, 2015;Song et al., 2016) and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly products Speake and Nchawa Yangke, 2015). These have all been explored in depth. ...
... and Nchawa Yangke, 2015; Pérez-Belis et al., 2017), consumer willingness to pay for recycling or improved WEEE collection methods Afroz et al., 2013;La Barbera et al., 2014;Song et al., 2016), willingness to recycle WEEE (Saphores et al., 2006;Nnorom et al., 2009;B. Li et al., 2012;Dwivedy and Mittal, 2013;Speake and Nchawa Yangke, 2015;Song et al., 2016) and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly products Speake and Nchawa Yangke, 2015). These have all been explored in depth. ...
... Within the broader category of small WEEE, mobile phones have emerged as being particularly problematic, primarily because of the WEEE flow (Ongondo and Williams, 2011b;Speake and Nchawa Yangke, 2015;Wilson et al., 2017), i.e. mobile phones are regularly replaced but retain a high residual value. Thus, consumers tend to store them (Darby and Obara, 2005;Speake and Nchawa Yangke, 2015;Wilson et al., 2017). ...
Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is the fastest growing waste stream in Europe. This research provides insight into consumer and business behaviours towards WEEE, particularly regarding how key decisions are made around WEEE disposal. This research determined a hybrid approach to WEEE target setting should be explored, using data available to Ireland and using aspects of the WEEE Calculation Tool.
Identifying Pressures
Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is the fastest growing waste stream in Europe. The recast WEEE Directive (2012/19/EU) laid down new collection targets of either 65% of the average weight of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) placed on the market in the previous 3 years or 85% of WEEE arising. This represents challenges for all stakeholders in the WEEE domain. Across Europe it is recognised that collection rates through official channels remain low. This research provides insight into consumer and business behaviours towards WEEE, particularly regarding how key decisions are made around WEEE disposal. Consumer and business behaviours contribute to WEEE arising in complementary flows outside compliant WEEE collection and treatment. Scrap metal sites were surveyed and a substantiated estimate of WEEE arising was calculated. Combining consumer and business survey findings with the substantiated estimate of WEEE arising in scrap metal pointed to key intervention points by which complementary flows could be eliminated, reduced or regularised.
Informing Policy
Frugality and waste avoidance are overwhelming drivers for consumers to store EEE that is no longer in use. A lack of connection between long-term storage and pressure on virgin raw material extraction means this is likely to persist. The accumulation of items combined with finding recycling inconvenient leads to items being disposed of at “critical moments” with a high “push factor” for materials to enter complementary streams.
WEEE accounts for a tiny proportion of waste in organisations and therefore does not command much attention. Trust is placed in waste contractors to dispose of information and communications technology (ICT) WEEE appropriately, but other items of WEEE are not considered.
In total, 415 tonnes of scrap iron, steel and mixed metals from construction and demolition and municipal waste were sampled. An estimated 3.91% ± 1.88% of the sample contained WEEE, equating to 10,950 tonnes or 2.28 kg/capita (± 1.1 kg/capita) based on 2018 data. Home renovations are critical moments in the disposal of WEEE. Professional WEEE accounted for almost 30% of WEEE observed in metal scrap.
The WEEE Calculation Tool’s functionality depends on high quality data. Its importance may lie as a cross-reference tool for identification of free riders as well as new emergent technologies and their likely impact on target achievement.
Developing Solutions
The convenience and visibility of WEEE recycling needs to be increased. Consumers are positively disposed towards recycling of WEEE, but it needs to be normalised and made easier. Small WEEE collections could be included in the delivery of large EEE and additional visible collection opportunities should be provided in frequently visited locations.
More repair, “preparation for reuse” and reuse opportunities for consumers would assist consumers and businesses to make connections to appropriate treatment rather than waste avoidance through storage, which is current practice. This would provide channels for WEEE to enter the formal accounting systems.
Another key recommendation is to explore incentives and penalties to facilitate mandatory handover and the direction of WEEE to appropriate recycling systems from skip hire companies, waste collectors and scrap metal facilities. This would aid in removing WEEE from complementary flows when consumers and organisations act inappropriately at “critical moments”.
Further work is necessary to support greater collection rates of business to business WEEE, in particular from small to medium-sized enterprises, for which appropriate disposition of WEEE, with the exception of data-bearing devices, is often not a priority. The further work should target greater awareness of the appropriate means of disposal and should also focus on waste collectors.
Finally, a hybrid approach to WEEE target setting should be explored, using data available to Ireland and using aspects of the WEEE Calculation Tool.
... Across Europe, numerous studies have informed that WEEE is found in substantial quantities in scrap metal collections (ADEME, 2013;Huisman, 2013;Huisman et al., 2012;Magalini et al., 2014;Smith, Peagam, & Hennig, 2014). It is believed that the vast majority are not appropriately treated beforehand, missing the key instructions provided by Annex VII of the WEEE directive (Magalini et al., 2014). ...
... Belgium (Huisman, 2013), Denmark (Gilberg, 2017), France (ADEME, 2013), the Netherlands , and the United Kingdom (Smith et al., 2014). Assessments of WEEE in metal scrap in both Belgium and the Netherlands were based on interviews and surveys of scrap metal sites. ...
... The UK's assessment sampled light iron collections and sought out large domestic appliances (LDA) only. These were separated from sampled loads, identified, recorded, counted, and weighed directly using weighbridges on sites (Smith et al., 2014). The Countering WEEE Illegal Trade study (Huisman et al., 2015) estimated that in the EU-28+2, 2.2 million tonnes of WEEE were mixed with metal scrap in 2012. ...
Quantifying waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) not arising in documented and formal WEEE collection is a major challenge. This paper presents a method to characterize and estimate quantities of WEEE arising in scrap metal. Two European Catalogue List of Waste, codes 17 04 05, construction and demolition wastes—iron and steel and 20 01 40, metals separated out from municipal, household, commercial, and industrial waste, were analyzed on arrival to scrap metal sites. Metal scrap originated from household and business sources and excluded end‐of‐life vehicles and batteries. The point of sampling eliminated risks of double counting. Four representative sites across Ireland were surveyed over the course of 1 year. UNU‐Keys were used to assign estimated masses based on identification of WEEE items as they arrived in loads entering scrap metal sites. In total, 415 tonnes of metal scrap were sampled and 747 individual WEEE items were identified. It is estimated that 3.91% ± 1.88% of the mass sampled was WEEE equating to 2.28 kg/capita. Although large equipment dominated the count and mass‐based assessments of untreated WEEE in metal scrap, 35% of items identified were classified as small equipment. Professional equipment made up 29% of the estimated mass and 25% of WEEE items observed. Policy makers tasked with enhancing WEEE collection rates need to consider interventions targeting construction, demolition, and renovation, especially planning so that impending WEEE items such as photovoltaic panels are appropriately treated in the future. This article met the requirements for a gold–silver JIE data openness badge described in http://jie.click/badges.
... Several studies have documented that consumers across the globe tend to store their small electronic devices when they reach their end of life instead of disposing of them [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. This 'dead storage' of devices represents a problem to the transition towards a circular economy, that is, a "regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimised by slowing, closing, and narrowing material and energy loops" [9] (p. ...
Consumers across the globe tend to store their small electronic devices when they reach their end of life instead of disposing of them. This is a problem because if end-of-life devices are not recovered from consumers’ homes, the devices cannot be re-used or recycled, leading to increased production. We study what motivates consumers to store their end-of-life devices by looking at how storage creates consumer value. Applying a practice-based understanding of value, we find that storage is a social practice that generates value by protecting consumers from four different kinds of risk: practical risks, existential risks, environmental risks, and moral risks. Storage gives consumers a sense of security in their everyday lives and thus generates what we call ‘security value’. This notion implies that even though end-of-life devices sit idle in consumers’ homes, their value generating capacity remains active. The findings have implications for the role of consumers in reverse logistics strategies for sustainable systems.
... All the influencing factors found in the empirical studies ( Figure 11) are reflected in the literature. For instance, the lack of awareness of collection solutions is a prominent factor in publications [23,36,[47][48][49][50][51]. The importance of finding the appropriate collection solution is evident in the work by, for example, Ren (2018), who designed an app to seamlessly connect the use phase with the divestment phase and pro-actively inform users on divestment solutions [45]. ...
For the transition toward a circular economy, it is essential that products are returned for reuse, refurbishing or recycling. In order to address the lack of literature on the topic from a user perspective, this paper explores how users can be stimulated to return used smartphones. Taking a Research through Design approach, we developed a novel set of “design for divestment” principles. Divestment is the process users experience when separating from a product. After introducing a conceptual model of divestment based on an extension of the Consumer Decision Process model by Blackwell, Engel, and Miniard, we describe seven empirical studies (i.e., design projects) into smartphone divestment. The studies explore factors that influence a successful divestment process. We report on a highly complex process with interrelated factors changing over time. While it is impossible to define a blueprint for an ideal divestment process, several patterns emerged such as the need to emotionally support users, to give them confidence regarding data security, and to provide information at the right moment. These unique insights contribute to consumer research (i.e., circular consumption); and by translating the insights to ten design principles for divestment, a novel contribution is made to the field of design research.
