A Collaboration of 3 Academic Generations on E-Cycling + Sustainable Supply Chains

We recently received some great news.

Our paper, "When and for Whom Would E-Waste be a Treasure Trove? Insights from a Network Equilibrium Model of E-Waste Flows," was accepted by the Editor of the International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE) for publication.

This paper was co-authored by Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria, Professor Fuminori Toyasaki of York University in Canada, Thomas Nowak, a doctoral student being supervised by Professor Wakolbinger, and me.

Both Tina and Fuminori were my former doctoral students in Management Science at the Isenberg School of Management and worked in my Supernetwork Laboratory so this collaboration across three countries and three academic generations is extra special. Fuminori and I had earlier written the paper, "Reverse Supply Chain Management and Electronic Waste Recycling: A Multitiered Network Equilibrium Framework for E-Cycling,"  which was published in Transportation Research E in 2005, and it continues to be one of my most highly cited papers according to Google Scholar.

The abstract of our IJPE  paper is reprinted below.

Abstract:
E-waste is the fastest growing waste stream. Due to its potential economic value as well as its possible negative impacts on the environment, tracing e-waste  flow is a major concern for stakeholders of e-waste management. Especially, whether or not adequate amounts of electrical and electronic equipment waste (WEEE)  flow into the designed recycling systems is a fundamental
issue for sustainable operations. In this paper, we analyze how technical, market, and legislative factors influence the total amount of e-waste that is collected, recycled, exported and (legally and illegally) disposed of. We formulate the e-waste network  flow model as a variational inequality problem.

The results of the numerical examples highlight the importance of considering the interaction between the supply and the demand side for precious materials in policy-decisions. Low collection rates of e-waste lead to low profi ts for stakeholders and they make it difficult to establish sustainable recycling operations. Increasing WEEE collection rates increases recyclers profits; however, it only increases smelters' profits up to a certain limit. After this limit smelters cannot benefit further due to limited demand for precious materials. Furthermore, the results emphasize the importance of establishing international control regimes for WEEE  flows and they show possible negative consequences of the recent trend of dematerialization. More precisely, product dematerialization tends to decrease recyclers' and smelters' profits as well as increase out flow of e-waste from the designated recycling system.

Isn't it great to have research on sustainable supply chains capture the imagination of several academic generations?!

The photo above, taken in a cafe in Vienna, Austria,  is of Thomas Nowak, Professor Toyasaki Professor Wakolbinger, and two other former doctoral students of mine, Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney in Australia, and Professor Jose Cruz of the University of Connecticut.

Mother's Day is just around the corner and I am a very proud Academic MOM!

The Global Outsourcing of Electronic Recycling -- Profits at What Costs?

Yesterday's New York Times ran an article, which I shared with some of my collaborators and students, and one already responded with the following message: It breaks my heart whenever I hear this kind of news. A big powerful country should not take advantage of its position.

The article, "Lead from Old U.S. Batteries Sent to Mexico Raises Risk," focuses on the immense health costs and environmental damage from outsourcing of electronic waste recycling to Mexico, a practice that has grown over the past several years.

The article is filled with ironies.

According to the article: The rising flow of batteries is a result of strict new Environmental Protection Agency standards on lead pollution, which make domestic recycling more difficult and expensive, but do not prohibit companies from exporting the work and the danger to countries where standards are low and enforcement is lax.

Also, according to the article, "lead is gold" and the American car battery industry likes to boast that it has the highest recycling rate for any commodity — 97 percent of the lead is recycled — and most states have laws mandating that stores take back old batteries. Whether deposited at the store where they were purchased or with a local mechanic, used batteries are redirected to recycling plants, where the real goal is not environmental stewardship but extracting the precious lead that is the gold of a protean trading system where traceability is impossible.

By outsourcing electronic recycling to Mexico not only are domestic recyclers in the US being hurt economically, but Mexicans who reside near recycling plants that do not adhere to proper lead recovery standards are faced with extraordinary health risks and negative impacts. There are schools located close to such facilities and more and more children are being identified with high lead amounts in their blood. Lead leads to neurological disorders, delayed/stunted learning, and behavioral problems.

I have conducted research on environmental sustainability for about 15 years now and have written both papers and books on the subject with my doctoral students who continue to produce scholarship on this topic. One of my most heavily cited papers is a paper with my former doctoral student, Fuminori Toyasaki, who is now a Professor at York University in Canada.

The paper is: Reverse Supply Chain Management and Electronic Waste Recycling: A Multitiered Network Equilibrium Framework for E-Cycling, Transportation Research E 41: (2005) pp 1-28.

Several of my former doctoral students, who are now all professors at business schools, just had a co-authored paper accepted on closed loop supply chains that is also relevant to electronic recycling. The paper, The Closed-loop Supply Chain Network with Competition, Distribution Channel Investment, and Uncertainties, by Qiang Qiang, Ke Ke, Trisha Anderson, and June Dong, will appear in OMEGA -The International Journal of Management Science.

Another relevant article of ours, Environmental and Cost Synergy in Supply Chain Network Integration in Mergers and Acquisitions, co-authored with Trisha Woolley (nee Anderson) quantified synergies, including environmental ones, associated with mergers and acquisitions, a topic of clear relevance to this application domain.

Along with Dr. Toyasaki, Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business and I are now completing a study on outsourcing, regulation, and electronic recycling.

I lived in Mexico the summer between my graduation from high school and my freshman year at Brown University. That experience remains one of my most wondrous ones of living in another country.

Businesses must look at the entire product supply chain life cycle to ensure that it is socially responsible and environmentally sound. Outsourcing to countries with low environmental awareness and poor environmental standards monitoring is contrary to civilized business practices.

Besides, what is more important than a company's reputation!

For an informative and accessible presentation on e-cycling, delivered by my husband, who also provided the above collage of images, see: Our Campus - Our Planet at the University of Hartford Freshman Orientation (pdf)

A New Student Generation and E-Cycling

As the new academic year begins and students move into their new dorms (and new roles) on campus, many colleges and universities are hosting special events.

My husband has already started teaching at his university, the University of Hartford, and this past week it hosted a special series of events focusing on Our Campus -- Our Planet.

At this full day of special activities, he gave a presentation on e-cycling, which he had worked on a lot and I thought it both relevant and entertaining so we have made his presentation available in pdf format. In his presentation, he references a paper that appeared in Transportation Research E that I co-authored with my former doctoral student, Fuminori Toyasaki, who is now a Professor at York University in Canada, and which is on the list of most-cited papers in this journal over the past 5 years.

Who can forget one's freshman year and especially that monumental moment when one gets dropped off on campus and parents leave?!

In terms of e-cycling (electronic recycling), the students of today certainly have much more electronic equipment that they bring to campus than their parents did.

Nice that colleges are keeping the students busy with various activities and interesting lectures before classes begin.