Employment of Material Flow Analysis in Optimization of E-Waste Management Systems

Abstract

Waste of electrical and electronic equipment (e-waste) is the outcome of the technological progress in electronic industry determining the exponential growth in amount and variety of the electrical and electronic products (EEE), the growth of economical welfare and unsustainable consumption. E-waste management systems (MS), implemented in the EU countries are not able to cope with the e-waste problem properly, especially in the new EU member countries. The best case scenarios of e-waste MSs from advanced countries could not be transposed directly to the countries behind the requirements of efficiency. The analysis of particular e-waste MS is essential for evaluation of its complexity and peculiarity. The aim of this paper is to represent the research of agent based material flow analysis (MFA) in the e-waste MS, as the measure to reveal the potential points for improvement. MFA was performed as a flow of goods (EEE).

The case study of MFA employment for the Lithuanian e-waste MS represents the following benefit: 1) estimation of the real EEE flows, including amounts of e-waste generated; 2)
detection of the roots of inefficiency; 3) starting point to perform structural selection of relevant impact factors determining the current operation of the system. The study demonstrates that agent based EEE flow analysis incorporating life cycle thinking approach for the national e-waste MS gives a broader view to the system than the administrative system used to cover. Therefore employment of EEE flow analysis is useful for improvement of the e-waste MS.