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Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development
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Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Waste and Recycling".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 34447

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yan Xu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Interests: waste management; sustainable development; decision analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ling Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Economics and Management, Research Centre for Soft Energy Science, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, China
Interests: low carbon and sustainable development; multicriteria decision analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

E-waste (electronic waste), also known as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), has become one of the fastest growing waste streams worldwide. As predicted by the Global E-waste Monitor 2020, global e-waste is predicted to reach 74.7 Mt by 2030, fueled by higher electric and electronic consumption rates, shorter lifecycles, and limited repair options. E-waste is destined for appropriate recycling and disposal, being one of the largest known sources of pollutants in municipal waste and the secondary source of various valuable materials and metals. Proper “e-waste mining” can reduce the pressure on natural resources, space for landfills, and the emission of pollutants, contributing to the circular economy and sustainable development. However, when treated inadequately, the released heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants can be redistributed, bioaccumulated and biomagnified, potentially causing human health problems and the contamination of air, water, and soil.

The e-waste problem has attracted attention from many countries and regions of the world. A better understanding and management of e-waste could contribute to the achievement of several goals (SDGs 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, and 14) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To this end, a number of initiatives have been implemented, such as the EPR, RoHS, StEP, and 3Rs, for facilitating the development of recycling infrastructures and technologies, policies and legal instruments, and low-carbon behaviors of manufacturers and consumers. However, global e-waste management practices are still hampered by many barriers and challenges financially, technologically, legislatively, and managerially. For example, as indicated by the literature and field investigations, developed economies with established waste management systems are struggling with the complex nature of e-waste, while developing economies are in desperate need of effective laws and strategies for promoting formal e-waste management. Thus, it is of strategic significance for policymakers and practitioners to find solutions capable of overcoming the e-waste barriers and challenges, achieving sustainable e-waste management.

This Special Issue intends to draw attention to the need for the addressal of e-waste management problems from diverse perspectives. It aims to initiate worldwide discussions on the challenges and opportunities ahead of e-waste mining, and generate valuable insights to help policymakers, industries, and consumers implement low-carbon methods for achieving a sustainable future.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • E-waste management policies and initiatives;
  • Technologies and innovations in e-waste recycling, recovery, and treatment;
  • Strategies and methods in e-waste collection, reduction, and recycling;
  • Activities, behaviors, and responsibilities of stakeholders (e.g., governments, recycling industry, producers, consumers, etc.) involved in e-waste management;
  • Strategic/operational planning and decision making in the e-waste recycling industry;
  • Economic, environmental, social, and health impacts of e-waste;
  • Circular economy, low-carbon development, and zero-waste cities;
  • E-waste management in the digital age;
  • E-waste transboundary movement and recycling in developing countries.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Yan Xu
Prof. Dr. Ling Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • e-waste, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)
  • sustainable development
  • circular economy
  • zero waste
  • sustainability
  • recycling technology and innovation
  • waste management policy and regulation
  • low-carbon recycling awareness and behavior
  • waste to energy
  • waste to resource

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 2807 KiB  
Article
Predicting WEEE Generation Rates in Jordan Using Population Balance Model
by Feras Y. Fraige, Laila A. Al-Khatib and Mou’ath A. Al-Shaweesh
Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2845; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032845 - 03 Feb 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1603
Abstract
Waste generated from electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) is increasing rapidly due to the high demand for appliances, rapid product obsolescence, coupled with rapid economic growth, urbanization and technology advancement. Setting up a proper WEEE management system, which ensures better collection, treatment, recycling [...] Read more.
Waste generated from electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) is increasing rapidly due to the high demand for appliances, rapid product obsolescence, coupled with rapid economic growth, urbanization and technology advancement. Setting up a proper WEEE management system, which ensures better collection, treatment, recycling and control of transboundary movement of waste is crucial to increasing resource efficiency, improving sustainable production, use and consumption, and promoting the circular economy in Jordan. However, this system requires proper assessment of WEEE generation rates and reliable figures. Estimation of historical and future electric and electronic equipment put on market (EEE POM) and WEEE generation rates in Jordan have been achieved using the population balance model (PBM), logistic growth model (LGM) and Weibull distribution from 2000 to 2050. It is expected that the total disposal of appliances will reach about 1.6 million units (53 kt) in 2022, double this figure by 2044 and hit around 5 million units (175 kt) in 2050, with increasing WEEE generation rates. This is combined with the changing composition of WEEE with time. Thus, a rapid increase of WEEE in the near future is expected; this increase requires close monitoring and immediate response to tackle this hazardous waste. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development)
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23 pages, 12641 KiB  
Article
Detection Method of End-of-Life Mobile Phone Components Based on Image Processing
by Jie Li, Xunxun Zhang and Pei Feng
Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 12915; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912915 - 10 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1563
Abstract
The number of end-of-life mobile phones is increasing every year, which includes parts that have high reuse values and various dangerous and toxic compounds. An intellectualized and automatic upgrade of the disassembly process of the end-of-life mobile phones would enhance the recycling value [...] Read more.
The number of end-of-life mobile phones is increasing every year, which includes parts that have high reuse values and various dangerous and toxic compounds. An intellectualized and automatic upgrade of the disassembly process of the end-of-life mobile phones would enhance the recycling value as well as efficiency. It would reduce the pollution in the environment. The detection of end-of-life mobile phone parts plays a critical role in automatic disassembly and recycling. This study offers an image processing-based approach for identifying important parts of mobile phones that are nearing the end of their useful lives. An image enhancement approach has been utilized for generating disassembly datasets of end-of-life mobile phones from several brands and models, and different retirement states. The YOLOv5m detection model is applied to train as well as validate the detection model on the customized datasets. According to the results, the proposed approach allows the intelligent detection of battery, camera, mainboard and screw. In the validation set, the Precision, Recall and mAP@.5 are 99.4%, 98.4% and 99.3%, respectively. Additionally, several path planning algorithms are utilized for the disassembly plan of screws which indicates that the genetic algorithm’s use increases the efficiency of disassembly. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development)
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16 pages, 2128 KiB  
Article
The Chemistry and Health Outcomes of Electronic Waste (E-Waste) Leachate: Exposure to E-Waste Is Toxic to Atlantic Killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) Embryos
by Juliet Kelechi Igbo, Lucian Obinna Chukwu, Emmanuel Olusegun Oyewo, Jason L. Blum, Ariana Schanzer, Isaac Wirgin, Gabriella Y. Meltzer, Nirmal K. Roy and Judith T. Zelikoff
Sustainability 2022, 14(18), 11304; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811304 - 09 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1733
Abstract
Although there is rising global concern over the environmental, ecological, and human health risks associated with the discharge of leachates from e-waste dumpsites into the aquatic ecosystems, little is known in this research area. Thus, for this study, we first defined the chemistry [...] Read more.
Although there is rising global concern over the environmental, ecological, and human health risks associated with the discharge of leachates from e-waste dumpsites into the aquatic ecosystems, little is known in this research area. Thus, for this study, we first defined the chemistry of the test leachate, followed by assessment of the leachate on the development of a model aquatic organism (Fundulus heteroclitus) used extensively as a bioassay organism in pollution studies. Chemical analyses revealed that levels of phosphate (20.03 mg/L), cadmium (Cd) (0.4 mg/L), lead (Pb) (0.2 mg/L), and chromium (Cr) (0.4 mg/L) were higher than the 2009 US EPA and the 2009 National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) permissible limits. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) burdens were dominated mainly by the high molecular weight congeners, specifically the ∑4rings (73 µg/L). Total polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) levels ranged from 0.00 to 0.40 µg/L with the ∑deca PCBs reaching the highest concentration. For the biological studies, F. heteroclitus embryos (48-h post-fertilization) were divided randomly into groups and exposed to one of six e-waste leachate concentrations (10, 1, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001%). Significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) between treated and control groups were observed in standard and total length, and head size. Further analysis using Duncan’s post-hoc test of multiple comparison also revealed specific differences within and between specific treatment groups. We conclude that e-waste leachate arising from indiscriminate dumping into aquatic ecosystems in Nigeria contains mixtures of toxic constituents that can threaten ecosystem and public health. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development)
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26 pages, 7997 KiB  
Article
A Fuzzy Simultaneous Evaluation of Criteria and Alternatives (F-SECA) for Sustainable E-Waste Scenario Management
by Mehdi Keshavarz-Ghorabaee, Maghsoud Amiri, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Zenonas Turskis and Jurgita Antucheviciene
Sustainability 2022, 14(16), 10371; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610371 - 20 Aug 2022
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 1777
Abstract
The process of production, consumption, and final disposal of electrical and electronic equipment usually leads to harmful waste to the environment called e-waste. Eliminating and decreasing this type of waste could be considered as an essential goal for many enterprises working toward sustainable [...] Read more.
The process of production, consumption, and final disposal of electrical and electronic equipment usually leads to harmful waste to the environment called e-waste. Eliminating and decreasing this type of waste could be considered as an essential goal for many enterprises working toward sustainable management systems. In this paper, we aim at introducing a new methodology for evaluation of sustainable e-waste management scenarios. The evaluation is defined as an MCDM (Multi-Criteria Decision-Making) problem, and the scenarios are the alternatives of the problem that need to be evaluated with respect to several sustainability criteria. An extended fuzzy SECA (Simultaneous Evaluation of Criteria and Alternatives) integrated with SMART (Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique), named F-SECA, is proposed to deal with the evaluation process. The α-cut approach is used to consider different levels of uncertainty and obtain interval values for assessment of criteria and alternatives. The proposed methodology helps us to make the evaluation with incorporation of subjective and objective data, opinions of multiple experts and uncertainty of information. We applied the methodology to evaluate sustainable e-waste management scenarios in a case. Through comparative and sensitivity analyses, the paper shows that the proposed methodology is efficient and gives reliable results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development)
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27 pages, 2462 KiB  
Article
The Determinants of Consumers’ E-Waste Recycling Behavior through the Lens of Extended Theory of Planned Behavior
by Nur Shafeera Mohamad, Ai Chin Thoo and Hon Tat Huam
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9031; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159031 - 23 Jul 2022
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4370
Abstract
Cutting-edge technological advancements have turned many electronic devices into waste within a short time of usage. Electronic waste (e-waste) has become a global problem. Due to the adverse impact of e-waste on the environment and human health, a regulatory system for effective collection [...] Read more.
Cutting-edge technological advancements have turned many electronic devices into waste within a short time of usage. Electronic waste (e-waste) has become a global problem. Due to the adverse impact of e-waste on the environment and human health, a regulatory system for effective collection and treatment of e-waste disposed of by the community and business sectors is in dire need. In an attempt to address the setbacks and cope with e-waste issues, this study determined factors that influence e-waste recycling intentions (ERIs) and e-waste recycling behavior (ERB) among consumers in Malaysia through the lens of an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model. Via an online survey, 159 questionnaires were collected from targeted respondents in Malaysia aged 18 years and above identified using the purposive sampling method. The structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was deployed for data analysis. As a result, moral obligation (MO) emerged as the most significant factor toward ERI, followed by perceived convenience (PC). Next, ERI displayed a significant effect on ERB. The multi-group analysis (MGA) outcomes revealed significant group differences in education variables, signifying that the lower/middle education group was more easily influenced to perform ERB than the higher education group. Essentially, this study contributes to many aspects especially in enhancing the awareness of e-waste issues and emphasizing the broad knowledge about e-waste recycling. This study provides practical implications for the government, the policymakers and all stakeholders, including consumers, non-government agencies, collectors, retailers, and recycling facilities. The study outcomes may be considered when formulating laws and regulations to enhance e-waste recycling efforts that guarantee a sustainable ecosystem in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development)
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Review

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22 pages, 2200 KiB  
Review
Material Flow Analysis in WEEE Management for Circular Economy: A Content Review on Applications, Limitations, and Future Outlook
by Dhiya Durani Sofian Azizi, Marlia M. Hanafiah and Kok Sin Woon
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3505; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043505 - 14 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5921
Abstract
Recently, the material flow analysis (MFA) of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has attracted much interest from researchers worldwide because of its function as a decision-making tool for moving towards a circular economy and sustainability in WEEE management. However, review studies [...] Read more.
Recently, the material flow analysis (MFA) of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has attracted much interest from researchers worldwide because of its function as a decision-making tool for moving towards a circular economy and sustainability in WEEE management. However, review studies on the development of MFA in WEEE management studies are still lacking. To fill this gap, 115 MFA studies published in various databases between 2010 and 2022 were analysed to provide a comprehensive overview of current research progress and recommendations for future studies. Three major elements from previous studies were reviewed using content analysis: (i) the trend of publishing in OECD and non-OECD countries over time; (ii) the scope and boundaries of the aspect studied, and the use of MFA in forecasting the generation, flow, and stock of WEEE; and (iii) providing a future outlook for MFA studies based on its limitations. Further analysis has revealed a considerable increase in the number of studies on MFA of WEEE in major OECD nations; however, the number of studies on concentrated areas of WEEE, particularly in non-OECD countries, remains low. Another limitation of MFA research is the scope and boundaries, with very few studies addressing the aspects of uncertainty analysis, circular economy, and life cycle analysis. Due to the increasing number of newly developed methodologies and the absence of thorough evaluation on this study topic, few studies properly utilised the static or dynamic MFA model. Thus, based on the research limitations and gaps discussed, recommendations for future studies are proposed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development)
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22 pages, 991 KiB  
Review
Challenges and Opportunities in the Management of Electronic Waste and Its Impact on Human Health and Environment
by Salma Taqi Ghulam and Hatem Abushammala
Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 1837; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15031837 - 18 Jan 2023
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 15402
Abstract
Electronic waste (e-waste) is the fastest-growing class of waste because of the remarkable demand for various electronic gadgets such as mobiles and laptops. Moreover, its improper disposal is life-threatening because it includes hundreds of different substances, many of which are toxic elements and [...] Read more.
Electronic waste (e-waste) is the fastest-growing class of waste because of the remarkable demand for various electronic gadgets such as mobiles and laptops. Moreover, its improper disposal is life-threatening because it includes hundreds of different substances, many of which are toxic elements and pollutants that can leach to soil and surface and groundwater or be emitted into the air, causing a major negative impact on the environment and public health. As a result, studies on the sustainable management of e-waste have gained increasing attention from researchers globally in the last decade to explore practical strategies to reduce or utilize this special waste. This review aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the major aspects of e-waste, including its definition, composition, and the impact of its end-of-life disposal on human health and the environment, while also focusing on some practical sustainable solutions and strategies toward effective e-waste management. It will also discuss the production of electronics; global demand and the mining boom; and the pollution caused by mining. It will also highlight the importance of effective governmental regulations, with which electronics producers, e-waste generators, and recycling facilities should comply. The research perspectives and orientations highlighted within this review can help in providing guidelines for future research studies and in exploring opportunities for more effective management of e-waste toward a circular economy and sustainable development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Waste Management and Sustainable Development)
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