Modeling electronic waste recovery systems under uncertainty

Firms operating in the electronic waste (e-waste) recovery business, voluntarily or because of legislation, would like to develop strategies that minimize their financial burden. A mass flow and economic model is developed to quantify the variation of economic performance of an e-waste recovery system due to product, collection, and market uncertainties. The goal is to highlight scenarios that may lead to economic success. The analysis shows that though the recovery of residential e-waste is typically unprofitable, there exist scrap market conditions in which a mix of primarily high value returns (laptops, PCs) may lead to net revenue. In a monitor-only scenario, when dealing with LCD as opposed to CRT monitors, the economic burden decreases at a steeper rate as scrap market prices improve.