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Weekly UpdatesMost countries place great importance on the recycling, treatment, and reuse of household electronic waste (hereinafter referred to as HEW). For instance, countries in Europe began to treat electronic waste as early as the 1970s. Since the beginning of the 1980s, Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden have probed deeply into the comprehensive utilization of electronic waste, and have devoted considerable efforts to the technical development of manual disassembly and metal enrichment. In the 1990s, the mechanical technique of metal enrichment was furthered and implemented in Western Europe (Wu 2001). Meanwhile, related legal regulations were enacted by European countries, including The Law on Recycling of Electronic Waste, The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (hereinafter referred to as WEEE), and The Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (hereinafter referred to as RoHS Directive) (Wang 2002; Zhou 2006). As a key link in the European environmental protection system, the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is to extend the producer's responsibility for environmental protection not only to the production process, but also to the whole product lifecycle, especially the recycling and treatment of waste. Generally, EPR consists of economic, recycling, and informative responsibilities (Feng 2005).
With great focus on development of cleaner production processes, the United States, as well, has striven to reduce electronic waste in the production process. However, as opposed to the recycling efforts in Europe, the U.S. has preferred burning and burying for the treatment of hazardous waste (Wu 2001).The U.S. encourages and backs a "voluntary partnership program" to solve environmental problems. Various groups may participate in this program, including companies of all sizes, state or local governments, universities, or community organizations. For example, Sony launched a five-year plan in Minnesota for the recycling of all its electronic products; IBM carried out the project of "Renewable IBM PC"; and HP established a product recycling solution plant in Roseville, California.
Finally, Japan as well has placed great emphasis on conservation and reuse of energy sources and resources (Wu 2001). Since the early 21st century, Japan began to enhance research on effective ways of electronic waste disposal. It has promulgated The Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society, and formulated a series of supporting laws and regulations, including The Waste Disposal Law, The Law for the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources, and The Electric Household Appliance Recycling Law (Gu 2007).
China is the largest producer and consumer of household appliances in the world. However, the technology for the reuse and disposal of waste household appliances has not yet been well developed. Most of such recycling processes are manually operated, with low processing and utilization ratios (Wen 2004). In addition, burying, direct burning, and acid treatment are still used as main disposal methods, all of which have caused serious pollution and waste of resources. In consideration of all these factors, the Chinese government has set about formulating relevant policies to facilitate the recycling of waste electrical appliances. These polices include Cleaner Production Promotion Law of the People's Republic of China, Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Wastes of the People's Republic of China, Management Measure for the Prevention of Pollution from Electronic Products, Requirements for Use Limitations of Hazardous Substances in Household and Similar Electrical Appliances, and General Requirements on Fixed Number of Years of Safety Use and Recycling for Household Electrical appliances (Zhou 2006). Concurrently, pilot schemes in provinces and cities, such as Zhejiang Province and Qingdao City, have been conducted for recycling of waste household electrical appliances.
This note aims to introduce a pilot scheme of HEW recycling and logistics system carried out in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province. It provides an overview of the research design for this pilot scheme, date analysis and results of one-year pilot operation, as well as several implications and recommendations for the Chinese government to establish a long-lasting HEW recycling and logistics system.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research methodology of this study consists of two parts: the prior market investigation and the follow-up pilot project. The prior market investigation is mainly used to understand the actual situation of the recycling and logistics system for HEW in Hangzhou city, and to discover the main obstacles.
The follow-up pilot project aims to solve those practical problems found by prior market investigation. The follow-up pilot project was implemented in the downtown area of Hangzhou, China, with units involved including one enterprise for household electronic waste disposal, three companies for household electronic waste recycling, five communities, and the relevant government administrative department. The methodology for this pilot project included the following:
Purpose and main procedures: This pilot research focused on the recycling and reuse of discarded household electronic waste. The procedures for implementing the study included choosing several residential communities as pilot communities, standardizing the currently existing household electronic waste recycling channels, setting up a few electronic waste recycling models in different pilot residential communities, and comparing results from the different projects.
Choice of pilot communities: Chinese residential communities usually can be divided into two types: closed community and non-closed community (hereinafter referred to as open community). Generally, a closed community is geographically relatively independent of the other communities by wall, with only a few gates set for residents to come in or go out. If residents from other communities would want to enter a closed community, they must get the securities' permission to enter this community. Open communities allow entrance at any time. Different types of communities will have a direct impact on the mode of HEW recycling and logistics system selection. Most of the communities in Hangzhou are open communities, with only a few exceptions. In order to better meet the actual situation, two open-type and one closed-type community were chosen for the study.
Arrangement of people for the pilot communities: Since household electronic waste collectors are free to enter open communities, it is difficult to restrict and regulate behaviors. However, one person was designated to collect electronic waste in one of the open communities. Meanwhile, we allowed the original electronic product repair shops in the other open community to handle the electronic waste collecting business. At the same time, in the closed community, we appointed three individuals who had previously been involved in collecting waste to manage the recycling of electronic waste.
Logistic network design for pilot communities: The recycling and treatment network for household electronic waste was composed of two phases and three links (see Figure1). The first phase was the household electronic waste collecting period, in which specially designated persons collected as much electronic waste as possible in each pilot community. Three major tasks during this recycling period can be summarized as "to remove," "to receive," and "to fund." "To remove" means to remove substandard recycling channels used for the collection of household electronic waste. "To receive" means to set up a household electronic waste recycling system beneficial to society and the environment, and especially to guarantee an efficient recycling channel to receive the electronic waste from the removal of the substandard recycling channels. "To fund" means to get financial support from the local governments since during the experimental period, the waste recycling system is not likely to be profitable. The second phase concerns the treatment and reuse of household electronic waste. According to the treatment network established by the program team, recycling persons arranged to transfer the waste collected from the pilot communities to designated recycling sites and prepare the waste for reuse or disposal.
To efficiently promote the implementation of the pilot community establishment program, other auxiliary practices were also implemented: (1) Urged each pilot community and the neighborhood committees to carry out the program in accordance with the requirements stated on the notification issued by governmental departments. In addition, licenses were distributed to specially designated electronic waste collectors. (2) Set reference price for household electronic waste recycling. (3) Handed out pamphlets to publicize the program and enhance residents' awareness of environment protection. (4) Provide a certain allowance to the electronic waste collectors by pilot program team.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
The household electronic waste recycling and reuse pilot program was officially put into operation in May 2007, after negotiations with relevant departments and persons, and the signing of relevant contracts in April. After one year' s operation, a number of observations can be made on the program:
(1) Management of electronic waste collection is tough to implement and cooperation with communities is crucial. Based on one year's experience, we find that the amount of electronic waste collected from closed-type and open-type communities differ considerably. Among the three pilot communities, the waste collected from the closed community accounts for over 90 percent of the total; the amount collected from other two open communities is much lower. The collaboration status of different management teams in each community serves as the primary cause of the disparity in collection amounts. During the operation period, in the closed community, the program team and the community's management team coordinated closely and reached three points of consensus on a number of issues, including the following: (1) The community designated persons to take charge of the communication and coordination work of the pilot program; (2) Three licensed collectors were designated to collect the electronic waste within the community, while other collectors were barred from entering the community. In addition, the cooperation status of the three collectors was recorded for personnel assessment; (3) In light of the features of the closed community, the community security guards were asked to go through entrance or exit registration of the electronic waste so as to facilitate the implementation of the pilot program. By comparison, in the two open communities, owing to lack of efficient collaboration with the community, any person could enter the community to collect electronic waste. Thus, the collectors designated by the pilot program team could only collect a small amount of electronic waste.
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