Modeling the impact of product portfolio on the economic and environmental performance of recycling systems

Through the development of a general model of electronics recycling systems, the effect of product portfolio choices on economic and environmental system performance is explored. The general model encompasses the three main functions of a recycling system-collection, processing, and system management-and allows for the effect of both contextual and architectural inputs-including product scope-to be explored. Overall model results indicate that collecting a broader portfolio of products can be economically favorable, even for cases in which lower-value products are added to a recycling system. In these cases, the higher total mass throughputs that are realized by the collection of additional product types can help to drive down the cost per unit mass collected. Expanding product scope can also yield improvements in environmental performance, as the energy per unit mass collected can also decrease with higher mass throughputs.