The Reverse Supply Chain of the E-Waste Management Processes in a Circular Economy Framework: Evidence from Italy

Raffaele Isernia, Renato Passaro, Ivana Quinto and Antonio Thomas
Additional contact information
Raffaele Isernia: Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SPA, Energy & Utility Division, Centro Direzionale Milanofiori, Palazzo D3, 20090 Assago (MI), Italy
Renato Passaro: Department of Engineering (DI), University of Naples Parthenope, Centro Direzionale di Napoli, Isola C4, 80143 Naples, Italy
Ivana Quinto: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80, Piazzale Tecchio, 80125 Naples, Italy
Antonio Thomas: Department of Engineering (DI), University of Naples Parthenope, Centro Direzionale di Napoli, Isola C4, 80143 Naples, Italy

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-19

Abstract: In the last several decades, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) reverse supply chain management has increasingly gained more attention due to the development of an environmental awareness, the rapid raise of e-wasted products and the EU regulations. In particular, although the new EU WEEE collection target has not been reached by many EU countries, several studies show that an optimized WEEE wastes management processes could represent a relevant way to achieve economic, environmental and social benefits expected by the adoption of circular economy approaches. According to this, the paper aims to evaluate the extent to which the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislation are able to support the achievement of the targets defined by EU with a specific focus on the collection centers (CCs) which play a key role being the initial point of the WEEE reverse logistic cycle. An illustrative analysis based on the transition probability matrix regarding both the e-waste collecting performance and the distribution of collecting centers in the Italian provinces is illustrated. Furthermore, we have analyzed the presence of a correlation between the WEEE collection rate and the presence of the CCs in different provinces in order to better comprehend the role that can play both the investments in CC system and other soft measures in achieving the WEEE collection targets. Results show that the current Italian organization of the WEEE management system and the related legislations are not so effective in supporting the achievement of EU WEEE collection targets at the national level, although some geographical areas and provinces outperform the EU targets.

Keywords: waste electrical and electronic equipment; e-waste; WEEE; circular economy; reverse logistics; Italian provinces (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/8/2430/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/8/2430/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:8:p:2430-:d:225548

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().