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Abstract:

Purpose – End-of-life (EOL) products have become a major environmental issue among countries and manufacturers. This is due to the growing number of EOL products and their hazardous contents. Many collection strategies and pilot projects have been conducted to manage EOL products, especially Waste Electrical and Electronics equipments (WEEEs). However, as characteristics of a population are different to one another, a customized collection strategy is required. The purpose of this paper is to find an effective collection strategy which considers cost and environmental impact simultaneously.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents an integrated collection strategy which combines a Fuzzy Colored Petri Net forecasting method and collection network model to collect EOL products. Colored Petri Net is used in modeling the integrated collection strategy. To test the collection strategy, a case study on mobile phone collection in Australia is presented.

Findings – The integrated collection strategy developed in this paper finds that by providing demographic data and historical sales of a relevant product in a certain location, the best strategy to collect EOL products in that location can be determined. This paper finds that the best strategy that suits one location might be different to other locations.

Originality/value – This paper presents a model which provides a customized collection strategy that follows the characteristics of a population. This strategy allows government organizations or manufacturers to simulate the strategies to collect EOL products in different locations.

Keywords:

Obsolescence, Waste collection, Waste handling, Waste management

Article Type:

Research paper

Article URL:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/09574090810919206

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