Elsevier

Waste Management

Volume 73, March 2018, Pages 78-86
Waste Management

Resource conservation approached with an appropriate collection and upgrade-remanufacturing for used electronic products

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2017.11.053Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Intelligent collection through online portals.

  • Infernal remanufacturing activity approach.

  • Internet of things potential for approached end of life products.

Abstract

This comparative research represents an example for a better conservation of resources by reducing the amount of waste (kg) and providing it more value under the umbrella of remanufacturing. The three discussed cases will expose three issues already addressed separately in the literature. The generation of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) interacts with the environmental depletion. In this article, we gave the examples of addressed issues under the concept of remanufacturing. Online collection opportunity eliminating classical collection, a business to business (B2B) implementation for remanufactured servers and medical devices. The material reuse (recycling), component sustainability, reuse (part harvesting), product reuse (after repair/remanufacturing) indicates the recovery potential using remanufacturing tool for a better conservation of resources adding more value to the products. Our findings can provide an overview of new system organization for the general collection, market potential and the technological advantages using remanufacturing instead of recycling of WEEE or used electrical and electronic equipment.

Introduction

The most prominent accessories and utilities in our daily life have changed the aspects of living and communication. From the moment when the information and communication technology (ICT) expanded, the world became more interconnected through a diversity of devices. The reflection of Moore law, observed that the updating of packed components from an integrated circuit board is doubling every 18 months, increasing the electronic manufacturing, used/WEEE generation and informal recycling (Mollick, 2006, Xinwen et al., 2011).

According to the UN data, from the released rapport in 2015 for the year of 2014, an approximated amount of 41.8 million metric tons (Mt) of e-waste was generated which consisted 3 Mt small IT devices, 11.8 Mt large equipment, and 7 Mt cooling and freezing equipment(Baldé et al., 2015). In most of the cases, the open dumping areas are related to the informal recycling, dismantling, discharging of hazardous substances from EEE(Awasthi and Xianlai Zeng, 2016, Rochman and Browne, 2013, Oyuna Tsydenova, 2011, Zeng, 2009).

Because of the chemical and mechanical characteristics e-waste and used electrical and electronic equipment can have another option to be regressed to a new product or raw material with less hazardous environmental effect using remanufacturing procedure.

Different solutions of the WEEE global issue can solve the problem in other manners being more or less efficient as the recycling option (Yi et al., 2016). This article reveals how technology, market potential, and electronic design can contribute to a better collection of the waste and how remanufacturing is implemented, exemplifying of an efficient collection system and internal remanufacturing scheme of used equipment as servers and medical devices. In the traditional scheme of electronic collection system the complexity and time duration per transaction of used equipment is too slow and too complicated. A new practice of collection developed in China is “Internet + logistics” collecting waste/used mobile phones, tablets, and monitors. The aim of internet transactions is to build a business to business (B2B), reverse supply chain, not a business to consumer (B2C) standard collection flow, and break through information to a sustainable and fast collection reducing costs and giving more value to the WEEE. This base strengthens the material and fund flow, realizing a breakthrough in the typical industrial chain of the electronic collection. A better collaboration between B2B cuts the corridors of a slow typical collection, helping the user and receiver (remanufacturing company) of used equipment to receive the product in a shorter time and physically diagnose. The case of server remanufacturing in China and healthcare remanufacturing of medical equipment in Europe are proper examples highlighting the availability to maximize the resource value.

Remanufacturing is more sustainable than material recycling offering a new possibility to the product to be reintegrated in the life chain avoiding the transformation of components, parts and assembles in secondary materials and again in a new product (Bernard, 2011, Gutowski et al., 2011, Nasr and Thurston, 2006). This is giving the possibility to reduce the CO2 emission, raw material, and energy consumption plus environmental degradation (Gutowski et al., 2011, Miao et al., 2016). However, to support the benefits of reusing for remanufacturing ilustrate the internal composition and physical status of the plastic circuit board (PCB) and plastic cases of two monitors. Overall, the experimental parts uncover the already discussed composition of WEEE products which degrade the environment and avoided raw material consumption. All of this can be avoid by using the proper tools as remanufacturing and reuse of subassemblies via Internet of Things (IoT) upgradability with Banana pi (card sized single-board computer) for a universal range of new and use equipment.

This paper is organized as follows. Section 1 a worldwide introduction of e-waste generation and markets approach and possibilities. In Section 2 is presented the methodology of collection by using new methods as internet application, (B2B) remanufacturing to maximize resource value and physical status for selection of subassembly for reuse and upgradability. In Section 3 we describe the research results which are followed by Section 4 discussion of the study. In particular, shows that IT contributes to increasing the collection and resource conservation.

Section snippets

Methodology

The aggregated methods used in this research are shared in three main parts: collection, remanufacturing management and experimental analysis. All the information generated herein has been collected from the field. In the collection section, a Chinese company from Shenzhen called Taolv Iinformation Technology Company is described, from which the data has been collected and processed. They collect, test and sell secondhand mobile phones and tablets. Taolv is a leading third party internet

Case studies

The investigated companies in this study generate another view regardless to the traditional collection system and the new opportunistic approaches from China and Europe. The waterfall of the manuscript describes a new collection system rather the conventional one (Magalini et al., 2015) and remanufacturing introduction and management for servers and medical devices. This path gave a meaningful approach to conserve the existent equipment and reuse specific parts/components avoiding recycling.

Material status

The experimental purpose of this section is to measure to what extent the actual status of plastic and PCBs from used electrical/electronic devices or e-waste can substitute parts harvesting for reuse or remanufacture to avoid informal recycling (Huiting Shenta and Pughb, 1999). The state of reusing had been heavily discussed in the literature having different opinions related to the components quality, material safety, and equipment durability (Wang et al., 2017). If discharged products can be

Experimental analysis

The existent literature examining the composition of old electronics for the recycling process it didn’t change in the last decades having more or less the same structure (Salhofer, 2017). The examination of the old and new material utilized in the manufactured equipment deliver an unchanged situation of their status. The examination of plastic and PCB materials observed that the inorganic composition of the PCB (plastic circuit board) is changing comparing over the production year in different

Conclusions

In this article we identify three avenues to do a better conservation of resources speculating the new opportunity given to used equipment or matured in functionality for a new reintegration in the life cycle. Although the probability of reintegration is lower in the case of EEE, it remains an approach to recover the used resources utilizing remanufacturing instead of recycling and manufacturing.

As an availability of devices with the higher value as medical devices and servers, even the small

Authors contributions

J.L. and Z.G.I. designed the research, conducted literature and wrote the manuscript; AB. S. contributed insights and improved the structure of the manuscript.

Acknowledgements

The work was financially supported by the National Key Technology R&D Program (2014BAC03B04). We acknowledge Dr. Yu Miao, Dr. Xianlai Zeng and Dr. Yang Congren from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China for the valuable comments and suggestions.

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