Success factors and barriers in re-use of electrical and electronic equipment

Ramon Kissling, Damian Coughlan, Colin Fitzpatrick, Heinz Boeni, Claudia Luepschen, Stefan Andrew and John Dickenson

Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 2013, vol. 80, issue C, 21-31

Abstract: This paper aims to identify specific and generic success factors and barriers in the re-use of electrical and electronic equipment for a variety of different operating models. The scope of the study is information and communication technologies (ICT) and large household appliances. Success factors and barriers for re-use were identified through the conducting of semi-structured interviews with 28 case study partners representing the different models. A list of generic success factors and barriers was identified. From this generic list, the re-use success factors and barriers were ranked by the interviewees with regards to their importance. On the one hand, the difficulty in accessing sufficient volumes of good quality used equipment and the lack of legislations, which support, incentivize and – if necessary – enforce this access, were identified as most impactful barriers. On the other hand, the control and securing of product and process quality were ranked as most important success factors. Re-use organisations, which adhere to good re-use practices, differentiate themselves through quality guarantee from non-compliant, informal competitors. Moreover, proven quality strengthens confidence in re-use of important stakeholders like suppliers, customers, authorities and the general public. Differences in reuse barriers and success factors were also explored for varying geographical regions, product category and operating models.

Keywords: Re-use of electrical and electronic equipment; Re-use barriers; Re-use success factors; Re-use; WEEE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344913001572
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:recore:v:80:y:2013:i:c:p:21-31

DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.07.009

Access Statistics for this article

Resources, Conservation & Recycling is currently edited by Ming Xu

More articles in Resources, Conservation & Recycling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kai Meng ().