The Implications of Recycling Technology Choice on Extended Producer Responsibility

Morvarid Rahmani, Luyi Gui and Atalay Atasu

Production and Operations Management, 2021, vol. 30, issue 2, 522-542

Abstract: We study recycling technology choice, a critical factor that has received little attention in the context of extended producer responsibility, and its interaction with product design‐for‐recycling in driving the environmental benefits of recycling systems. Collective recycling systems have long been criticized for restricting the environmental benefits of extended producer responsibility because of free riding issues among producers, which can undermine incentives for product design‐for‐recycling. We revisit and refine this assertion by analyzing the interaction between recycling technology and product design‐for‐recycling choices. We develop game‐theoretic models where producers and processors decide on product design‐for‐recycling and recycling technology choices, respectively. We then compare the equilibrium benefits of recycling in collective and individual systems. The key result in this study is that when recycling technology choice is taken into account, collective recycling systems can lead to higher environmental and economic benefits than individual recycling systems. This is because collective recycling systems provide stronger incentives for recycling technology improvements. In turn, these improvements can help overcome the drawbacks associated with inferior product design‐for‐recycling outcomes caused by free riding concerns among producers in collective recycling systems. In light of these results, we posit that an exclusive focus on product design‐for‐recycling to assess the environmental benefits of extended producer responsibility‐based recycling systems may need scrutiny. Producers and policy makers may need to evaluate recycling systems with respect to the incentives they provide for both product design‐for‐recycling and recycling technology improvements.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13279

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:bla:popmgt:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:522-542

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1111/(ISSN)1937-5956

Access Statistics for this article

Production and Operations Management is currently edited by Kalyan Singhal

More articles in Production and Operations Management from Production and Operations Management Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().