System Dynamics Model for Sustainability Analysis of Mobile Phone Reverse Logistics

E-waste currently represents a portion of global waste problem; nevertheless, e-waste quantities are continuously fast rising all over the world. As the waste problem increases, new business opportunities related to their reuse and recycling could be evaluated. The paper focuses on a particular type of e-waste: mobile phones as they are the most ubiquitous electronic equipment. By analysing market trend in developed countries, mobile phones are characterized by a short life-cycle even if they are still working. Thus, reuse and recycling markets are developing for these products. Their small size is contributing to increase the overall profitability of these secondary market. The aim of this study is to develop a system dynamics model for evaluating sustainability performance of mobile phone reverse logistics. All End-of-Life (EoL) alternatives starting from the reuse “as is” of the mobile phones to refurbishment, components reuse, materials recycling, and final disposal have been introduced in the reverse chain. Next, a simulation model has been developed in order to assess the three traditional dimensions of sustainability i.e. environmental, economic and social levels. Two different strategies a “push” and a “pull” approach for optimizing the reverse chain have been compared by the simulation model. In the first scenario, the demand of primary market i.e. upstream tier – enforces reverse chain performances as target levels for each EoL options have been fixed a priori. On the other hand, the “pull” logic works with feedbacks in the second scenario, such as the performance of each upstream tier in the chain depends on dynamics applied on the downstream tiers, i.e. the sustainability dimensions. The scenario analysis has been applied in an illustrative example.