Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are an integral part of any electronic equipment. The growth of e-waste as endof-life electronic equipments at an exponential rate is producing large quantities of discarded PCBs. In India, current recycling and processing of PCBs is managed almost entirely by the informal sector or the unskilled labor (95%). The crude recycling activities cause irreversible health...

In this paper, we focus on a problem of increasing environmental concern – that of electronic waste – and we present an integrated framework for the modeling of the management of such waste, which includes recycling. We describe the behavior of the various decision-makers, consisting of the sources of electronic waste, the recyclers, the processors, as well as the consumers associated with the ...

The growth in electronic equipment production and consumption has been exponential in the last two decades. About 20 to 50 million tonnes of electronic waste (“e-waste”) are generated worldwide every year. Much of this waste has been transported to the developing nations. The Customs Agency of Tianjin, China, has reported that more than 200 tonnes of smuggled e-wastes have been confiscated in t...

Human exposure to pollutants from e-waste is an important scientific issue for their health effects. In this study, organohalogen pollutants in human serum sample from an e-waste dismantling site (n=35) and a control site (n=21), both located in Tianjin, Northern China, were analyzed using GC-ECNI-MS. Geometric mean concentrations of tetra- through hexa-BDEs, hepta- through nona-BDEs, PCBs, PBB...

E-waste contains high amount of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) which are toxic, bioaccumulative and recalcitrant. In the present study, an effective and environmental-friendly process using solvothermal treatment to extract tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), a typical BFR from waste computer housing plastic was developed. After the solvothermal process, TBBPA were transferred into a special sol...

In this paper we introduce a definition of post-Turing ICT with an initial analysis of its sustainability. At the beginning of the history of computing the attention was concentrated on the single machine: a device able to read and write a memory and able to execute different actions depending on the internal state. It was only in the 1960's that the fifth function (after input, memory, process...

A growing stream of environmental legislation enforces collection and recycling of used electrical and electronics products. Based on our experiences with producers coping with e-waste legislation, we find there is a strong need for research on the implications of such legislation from an operations perspective. In particular, as a discipline at the interface of systems design and economic mode...

This paper examines the impact of take-back laws within a manufacturer/remanufacturer competitive framework. Take-back laws require that firms take responsibility for the collection/disposal costs of their products. We consider two alternative implementations of take-back laws that are distinguished by the degree of control that the manufacturer has on returns sold to the remanufacturer. In one...

With the increasing innovation of new electronic devices continually entering the marketplace, manufacturers and retailers are seeking partnerships with third party logistics (3PL) providers that can decrease e-waste through reverse logistics for end-of-life devices. With the general public’s sentiment to preserve the environment for future generations, manufacturers and retailers as well as th...