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This paper presents the results of a “preparation for reuse” trial of washing machines in Ireland. For the trial, a methodology for the quantitative assessment of potentially reusable appliances in the waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) stream is developed and applied to a statistically significant sample allowing the study to quantify...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... deemed acceptable were entered into the trial. Figure 5 shows the steps or stages involved in the trial process, with Figure 6 showing the associated process flow model used during the trial. ...
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... deemed acceptable were entered into the trial. Figure 5 shows the steps or stages involved in the trial process, with Figure 6 showing the associated process flow model used during the trial. The project specifically focused on the viability of refurbishing white goods/LHA appliances discarded by the end user. ...
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... shown in Figure 6, the study adopted a 2-tier approach to quantifying the re-use potential of all of the LHA sampled. The first tier is a "Visual Assessment and Functional Assessment" stage, where the quality of the item is the main success factor for the feasibility of re-use. ...
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... shown in Figure 6, the study adopted a 2-tier approach to quantifying the re-use potential of all of the LHA sampled. The first tier is a "Visual Assessment and Functional Assessment" stage, where the quality of the item is the main success factor for the feasibility of re-use. ...
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... this study, only items which meet the Grade 1 or Grade 2 standard are considered as candidates for preparation for re-use, requiring minimal preparation effort, while all remaining grades are considered unsuitable for re-use. Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 15 Figure 6. Preparation for re-use trial process flow diagram. ...
Citations
... dishwashers and washing machines) are an e-waste category with a large reuse potential, and the largest potential (economic, social, and environmental) lies in preparing end-of-life products for reuse (Zacho et al., 2018). However, substantial value is lost in value streams bringing a discarded product to a reuse facility; one reason being that products are subjected to rough treatment by actors in the value stream (Dalhammar et al., 2021;Johnson et al., 2020). The lost value is in essence 'uncaptured value' that has the potential to be captured through collaboration among the actors involved (Yang et al., 2017). ...
... The study finds that in value stream 1 an estimated 5% is fit for reuse which is in line with previous estimates of 1.5% (Johnson et al., 2020), especially considering that the case companies sold products with dents which are not included in the 1.5%. Other findings suggest that 13-16% of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) could immediately be prepared for re-use, and because 86% of damage to WEEE is caused by exposure to the outdoor climate and handling, the potential for reuse could be as high as 29% (Messmann et al., 2019). ...
... This study proposes that: Value creation in a take-back value stream is dependent on alignment between actors towards treating products according to the expected outcome. Rough handling of products results in both functional and visual damage (Dalhammar et al., 2021;Johnson et al., 2020), and this study finds that purpose alignment between actors impacts how products are handled and reduces the value destroyed and thus increase the value captured. As observed in value stream 3 alignment was achieved through multi-stakeholder collaboration where a higher transaction cost was accepted due to the purpose with the value stream of capturing value as agreed upon by the actors: Building owner wanted sustainable renovation, renovation company could offer a sustainable solution including reuse of whitegoods, and logistics partner uninstalled and moved to retain functional value. ...
The purpose of a take-back system is to reduce usage of new natural resources by reusing discarded products. However, value stream actors often damage the discarded products by treating it as waste, and potential reuse value is lost in the value stream bringing discarded products to a reuse facility. The value loss can be reduced through reconfiguring collaboration and alignment of purpose between value stream actors. The study explores multiple product take-back value streams and identify alignment in collaboration as an enabler of low product damage and high value creation which are central to operationalization of circular economy.
... Johnson et al. [101] perform a trial base study to assess the reusing of washing machines in Ireland. They use the terminology "preparation for reuse". ...
The usance of electric and electronic products has become commonplace across the globe. The growing number of customers and the demand for these products are resulting in the manufacturing of new electrical and electronic products into the market, which is ultimately generating a plethora of e-waste. The notion of a circular economy (CE) is attracting more researchers to work in the growing field of e-waste management. Considering e-waste as a prominent menace, the objective of this study was to undertake a comprehensive review of the literature by analyzing the research articles published in the MDPI Sustainability journal pertaining to the topic of e-waste in the context of operations and supply chain management (OSCM). This study was addressed via three research questions. A total of 87 selected papers from 2014 to 2023 were analyzed, reviewed, and categorized after data were collected from Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus academic databases with articles only published in the MDPI Sustainability journal. This entails identifying prominent research themes, publication trends, research evolution, research clusters, and industries related to e-waste through descriptive analysis. The field of study and methods employed were analyzed by means of content analysis by delving into the main body of the published articles. Further, four major research themes and clusters were identified: (1) closed-loop supply chains; (2) e-waste; (3) sustainable development; and (4) waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). Consequently, this review can be a foundation for subsequent scholarly pursuits toward e-waste management and fresh lines of inquiry for the journal. Finally, in the conclusion section, some future research guidelines are also provided.
... The activities that compose the collection service can also affect EEE reuse potential, as show the studies of: (i) Messmann et al. (2019), who highlight that changes in the way of collection, storage and treatment may unlock an additional potential of products sent to preparation for reuse; and (ii) Johnson et al. (2020), who show that functional failures during the stage of EEE use and damages occurring during the WEEE collection stage are among the factors which most contribute to the non-suitability of EEE for reuse. ...
... Factors which hamper lifespan expansion/durability, the reuse or treatment of products and/or components (Arcos et al., 2020;Ardente and Mathieux, 2014;Atlason et al., 2017;Bakker et al., 2014;Boldoczki et al., 2020;Bovea and Pérez-Belis, 2018;Ho et al., 2019;Johnson et al., 2020;Kissling et al., 2013;Laurenti et al., 2015). ...
... Opportunities (O). O1 -Climate agenda at the centre of world discussion: Proper WEEE management contributing to reduce the negative environmental impacts (Boldoczki et al., 2020;Johnson et al., 2020;Messmann et al., 2019;Safdar et al., 2020;Truttmann and Rechberger, 2006); economic opportunities (Awasthi et al., 2018;Cucchiella et al., 2015;Safdar et al., 2020;Zeng et al., 2018). ...
In addition to the difficulties involved in the management of conventional solid waste, the management of waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is significantly more complex due to its unusual chemical composition and fast generation. Both developed and developing countries have been looking for solutions to deal with the problems caused by the growing flow of WEEE, especially regarding sustainable solutions based on reducing resource exploitation by the recovery of materials from this type of waste. In this context, this work presents a quali-quantitative and comprehensive literature review of the publications on the management of WEEE, from the perspective of a circular economy. The results showed that the first publications on the topic appear in 2006, with a significant increase from 2015, the year when the Circular Economy Action Plan was instituted in the European Community. The most prominent authors have been giving emphasis to researches on recycling, reuse and technologies for the recovery of materials/energy from WEEE. Nevertheless, few studies have been found focusing on the prevention/reduction in WEEE generation, priority actions of the WEEE management hierarchy. The works analysed show that the current management of WEEE, despite considering the circularity of materials, prioritizes the development of technological solutions of the end-of-pipe type, greatly represented by the recovery of materials, instead of preventing the generation, which may be detrimental to long-term sustainability. The work ends with the presentation of a SWOT-TOWS (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis conducted to define the main strategies for the improvement of WEEE management from a circular economy perspective.
... In B2C, the consumers are responsible for registering the information regarding their obsolete electronic products, including the purpose (voluntary delivery or sale) and price (when necessary), while recycling companies provide the door-to-door collection service (Zhang et al., 2015). Additional information on the application of the model B2C to e-waste management can be found in the works of Coughlan et al. (2018) and Johnson et al. (2020). ...
This paper presents a survey focused on the prior knowledge, habits, attitudes and practice of Brazilian families on e-waste management and the factors associated with household e-waste behaviors. The study was conducted with 380 families of Caruaru, a Brazilian municipality. Regarding household waste management, only 9% of households segregate and dispose of waste properly. Other households store e-waste at home (36%), donate (23%), sell to third parties (8%), or dispose of it with common waste (24%). Moreover, the survey showed that families have basic knowledge about the problem of e-waste and present a positive motivation regarding e-waste management practices. A positive intention to purchase used and manufactured products was also identified, favoring a possible future market for these products. Finally, according to the main findings of this research, improving families’ awareness about source separation and providing infrastructure for collection should be among the main municipal management guidelines for e-waste in the area analyzed.
... Several studies found that in the handling of discarded white goods, careless loading/ unloading of appliances into collection containers took place regardless of the condition of the white goods or the damage that the rough treatment incurred onto these appliances [4,17,33,38]. ...
... Repair activities can be particularly challenging since there are many differences between various models and brands and a high turnover of new design solutions for white goods [38,40]. Moreover, there may not be enough relevant repair information from producers [16]. ...
... Every product model has its own specifications and diagnostics, which means that repairers need to have access to information. If the components are specialised and not common, finding spare parts can be difficult, and often producers charge high prices for spare parts [38,41]. In some cases, spare parts are only offered for a limited number of years [40]. ...
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes have proliferated across Europe and other parts of the world in recent years and have contributed to increasing material and energy recovery from waste streams. Currently, EPR schemes do not provide sufficient incentives for moving towards the higher levels of the waste hierarchy, e.g. by reducing the amounts of waste through incentivising the design of products with longer lifespans and by enhancing reuse activities through easier collection and repair of end-of-life products. Nevertheless, several municipalities and regional actors around Europe are increasingly promoting reuse activities through a variety of initiatives. Furthermore, even in the absence of legal drivers, many producer responsibility organisations (PROs), who execute their members’ responsibilities in EPR schemes, are considering promoting reuse and have initiated a number of pilot projects. A product group that has been identified as having high commercial potential for reuse is white goods, but the development of large-scale reuse of white goods seems unlikely unless a series of legal and organisational barriers are effectively addressed. Through an empirical investigation with relevant stakeholders, based on interviews, and the analysis of two case studies of PROs that developed criteria for allowing reusers to access their end-of-life white goods, this contribution presents insights on drivers and barriers for the repair and reuse of white goods in EPR schemes and discusses potential interventions that could facilitate the upscale of reuse activities. Concluding, although the reuse potential for white goods is high, the analysis highlights the currently insufficient policy landscape for incentivising reuse and the need for additional interventions to make reuse feasible as a mainstream enterprise.
... Despite the importance of PfR in terms of contribution to waste prevention goals and the wide range of potential addressed products, this stage is not frequently discussed in literature and most of the case studies focus on PfR of electric and electronic equipment (Boldoczki et al., 2020;Bovea et al., 2016Bovea et al., , 2018Coughlan and Fitzpatrick, 2020;Johnson et al., 2020;Pini et al., 2019;Zacho et al., 2018a), whereas other studies analyse textile waste (Muthu, 2015). However, PfR is of interest for such municipal waste fractions as clothing and textiles, furniture, bicycles, paint, mattresses, toys, books, etc. whose end-of-waste criteria can be achieved through sorting, checking and testing, transporting, cleaning or repairing, storing, moving and pricing operations, which in turn should be justified by actual reuse (Gusmerotti et al., 2019). ...
The paper illustrates a model to support waste management (WM) operators of municipal solid waste (MSW) services. This study proposes a framework to evaluate the potential of preparation for reuse (PfR) as strategy to jointly decrease social, environmental and economic impacts and meet the legal targets on waste management. As general indicators to evaluate the reusability of products do not exist yet, the aim of this study is the definition of a comprehensive indicator, which may be calculated for each product category by waste collection operators. The proposed reusability indicator includes one coefficient evaluating the potential for reuse, and three impact indicators for the assessment of social, environmental and economic performances. The indicator can be calculated by using real data, gathered by the waste collection operators in collaboration with reuse centres and referred to previous years. Hence, the proposed methodology allows waste collection operators to evaluate the potential consequences of the reuse strategy on their MSW collection system to monitor and disclose to public the impacts related to reuse activities, facilitating the achievement of sustainability in the WM sector.
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... Observations on scrap metal sites established that they were not actively soliciting WEEE, most WEEE were "hidden" in larger loads and would have been very difficult for processors to detect. Preventative measures are required to divert WEEE away from scrap metal collections, and into appropriate recycling, reuse, and recovery operations (Johnson, McMahon, & Fitzpatrick, 2020;Parajuly, Fitzpatrick, Muldoon, & Kuehr, 2020). ...
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.
This article explores the concept of the circular economy based on the use, as base material, of wood residues from the production process of a company that operates in the hygiene and cleaning products sector based at the Manaus Industrial Pole. These residues feed the manufacturing process of a Sustainable Joinery, which, in turn, manufactures custom products, as well as those from its catalog. It is intended to explore the manufacturing process in the context of the pillars of the circular economy. The methodology of this work consisted of exploring the stages of its manufacturing process, the process flows, the chain involved, and the waste management of this process. In this study, the life cycle stages of raw material supply and end-of-life pathways of wooden pallets were assessed environmentally from different perspectives with lifecycle assessment (LCA). In addition, it reveals the potential to be explored in the region due to the economic opportunities and social and environmental impacts since, considering only the year 2019, 21 tons of wood were reprocessed, representing an average monthly revenue in the order of $5,000. Moreover, it was possible to create new products from residues of the process and to make possible earns from that.KeywordsCircular EconomyJoinerySustainable Joinery
The reuse and repair of products are often good strategies from a holistic resource conservation perspective. Many organizations active in reuse concentrate in cities where a greater share of wasted electrical and electronic equipment is generated. The number of companies active in the reuse of these products is still limited, and information about the procedures and, more importantly, about the equipment effectively reused is not publicly available yet in many cases. This leads to imprecise knowledge about reuse in these organizations and unreliable data about the progress to a circular economy in cities and regions. The release of new standards on material efficiency represents a big step towards the harmonization of methods and indicators to monitor reuse and repair of products, but its use is challenging for existing workshops. This study examines the reuse of washing machines (WMs) at a local workshop with the objective of understanding the internal procedures for repair and reuse and defining indicators suitable to monitor these activities. The assessment at the company level shows that in 2018, approximately 77% of the WMs collected were recycled, 10% were repaired (80% of these needed multiple parts) and 2% were refurbished. At the product level, the proportion of reused components varies greatly from 4% to 14% when calculated by number on products to 60% when considering number balance. An economic analysis shows that using spare parts from wasted WMs increases the economic benefits up to 3-fold. In conclusion, the indicators proposed are useful to understand the performance of these workshops and potentially useful to quantify reuse at the city and regional scales.
The sustainable development of electronic and electrical industries involves not just mere effective utilization of energy at all stages of production, but also involves the recycling of end-of-life electric and electronic components. Rapid development in manufacturing technologies, together with increased consumer demand, has revolutionized societal investments in infrastructures for the rapid growth of global commerce. Nevertheless, the shortening of life expectancy, pushed by fast innovation, miniaturization, and value, has resulted in a significant accumulation of electronic waste (e-waste), causing increasing environmental concerns. This study gives a detailed insight into the recycling potential of different categories of e-waste. The standard sieve method was used to screen the shredded materials, and the Rosin–Rammler model was used to evaluate the particle size distributions. The wt% Cu in user scrap was the highest with 34.6% and was observed that the Cu content was reduced with the decreasing particle size. Au and Ag contents were not as high in user scrap, but it was found to be several times higher in laptop shred (Au) and in the motherboard shred (Ag). Identified peaks indicate the existence of polymers such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), high-density polystyrene (HIPS), polycarbonate (PC), and poly(p-phenylene oxide) (PPC). TGA analysis indicated that maximum wt% loss occurs at the temperature range of 285–290 °C, which corresponds to the degradation of commonly found polymers, analyzed from FTIR analysis. SEM micrographs of the different shredded scraps indicated that the material is heterogeneous and fibrous with particles of varying shapes, sizes, and texture.
