Third International Engineering Systems Symposium
CESUN 2012, Delft University of Technology, 18-20 June 2012
Export, metal recovery and the mobile phone
end-of-life ecosystem
L. Andrew Bollinger1, Vered Blass2 1Delft University of Technology Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
2Tel Aviv University
Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration Ramat Aviv, P.O. Box 39040, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
L.A.Bollinger@tudelft.nl, VBlass@post.tau.ac.il
Abstract. Against a background of rapidly growing mobile phone consumption in developing
and emerging economies, falling use times and looming metal scarcity, finding better ways to deal with end-of-life (EoL) phones is imperative. The current dynamic in which large numbers of EoL phones are exported from industrialized to developing and emerging economies results in the loss of significant amounts of scarce and valuable metals. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the dynamic of EoL mobile phone flows from industrialized to developing economies – what drives it, how does it hinder metal recovery and how can this be changed? The first part of the paper provides an overview of the various components of this dynamic - collection processes in industrialized countries, export flows, and refurbishing and metal recovery operations in developing and emerging economies. The second part of the paper extracts insights from the results of three simulation models - one system dynamics model and two agent-based models - dealing with various aspects of this dynamic.
The first model, with a global scope, indicates towards the potential relevance of reuse in developing and emerging economies in facilitating EoL phone collection in the industrialized world. The second model, also taking a global scope, indicates that high levels of reuse in the developing world alone are unlikely to create a situation that is both environmentally and economically sustainable, and emphasizes the need to improve recyling infrudtructure and metal recovery processes. The third model adopts a more local scope, focusing on the informal e-waste sector in Bangalore, India. Preliminary results from this model highlight some factors that can play a role in supporting the development of partnerships between small-scale recyclers and professional end refiners for the purpose of improving metal recovery.
1 Introduction
The last two decades have seen exponential growth in the use of mobile phones. In 1991, there were 16 million mobile phone subscribers around the world. By 2002 this number surpassed 1 billion, and it is currently estimated to exceed 5.6 billion (Allen, 2009; Geyer and Blass, 2010; Gartner, 2011). While this growth was initially localized in industrialized countries, an increasing proportion of mobile phone use currently takes place in the developing world. By the beginning of 2009, developing and emerging economies accounted for 75% of mobile phone subscriptions (The Economist, 2009).
Alongside this enormous growth in consumption is a large mobilization of material resources. While mobile phones are generally lightweight devices, they are composed of a large variety of materials - metals, plastics, ceramics, etc. - and up to 40 different atomic elements (Schluep et al., 2009). Metals usually constitute about a quarter of the weight of a mobile phone, with the average mobile phone containing about 15-40g of potentially recoverable metals (Geyer and Blass, 2010). While the majority of this mass is composed of relatively common metals such as copper, nickel and aluminum, it also includes a number of relatively valuable and scarce metals – gold, palladium, indium, tantalum and others (Schluep et al., 2009). These metals are essential to enabling the many functionalities that consumers have come to expect of today’s mobile devices, and endow end-of-life mobile phones with a minimum residual value between USD 0.68 and USD 0.90 per phone (Geyer and Blass, 2010).
Despite this residual value and the array of materials within them, mobile phones have become "disposable" devices in the eyes of most consumers. Industrialized country consumers now replace their mobile phones on average every 1 to 2 years (Geyer and Blass, 2010). Moreover, recycling rates of end-of-life phones are quite low – a 2008 survey by Nokia indicated that only about 3% of mobile phones are recycled, and about 16% are resold (Nokia, 2008). This is an unsustainable situation. Mobile phones and computers together already account for an estimated 3% of the annual world mine supply of gold and silver, 13% of palladium and 15% of cobalt (Schluep et al., 2009). The extensive mining required mobilizing these and other metals necessary for the manufacturing of mobile phones has significant ecological and social consequences, from polluting waterways to stoking ethnic conflict (Sutherland, 2011).
But there is no simple solution to improving metal recovery. The mobile phone end-of-life process is a complex global ecosystem featuring a multitude of actors operating within a range of different economic, cultural and regulatory environments. This paper addresses a particular aspect of this ecosystem and an important contributor to low metal recovery rates – the export of end-of-life mobile phones from industrialized to developing and emerging economies.
Growing demand for mobile phones in developing and emerging economies has created not only a large market for new phones, but also for the used phones of industrialized country consumers. While the export of end-of-life phones has the potential to increase their useful lifetime, it also amounts to a substantial transfer of valuable and scarce material resources – specifically metals – away from those geographical regions that are most technologically capable of re-mobilizing them. This dynamic is an important hindrance to improving the recovery of metals in mobile phones.
The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on this dynamic – what drives it, how does it hinder metal recovery, and how can this be changed? The remainder of the paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, we describe this dynamic in more detail. We use statistical and anecdotal evidence to explore the pathways of mobile phones from the hands of industrialized country consumers to their ultimate end-of-life in distant corners of the globe. And we elucidate the metal recovery processes that ensue. In the second part, we investigate how this dynamic might be changed. After briefly introducing three models that address various aspects of this dynamic, we seek to extract insights from each as to how metal recovery can be improved.
2 Metal recovery and the global end-of-life ecosystem
This section describes the global pathways of end-of-life (EoL) mobile phones, focusing on the export of EoL phones to developing and emerging economies and its consequences in terms of metal recovery.
2.1 Collection
The end-of-life ecosystem begins with consumers. The fraction of EoL phones that are collected, and the routes by which this collection takes place, vary across the industrialized world. In the US, collection methods range from drop-off bins to prepaid envelopes or boxes, and collection is usually outsourced to private enterprises that view the collection of EoL phones as a business opportunity (Geyer and Blass, 2010). The overall collection rate of mobile phones in the USA was estimated to be less than 8% in 2009 (U.S. EPA, 2011), and in California it was estimated to be 21% in 2010 (DTSC, 2012). In Japan, manufacturers and importers are required to take back e-waste for recycling, and consumers pay a fee to cover part of the recycling and transportation costs – recovery rates are estimated at about 20% of sold devices (Silveira and Chang, 2010). In the UK, distributors are required to facilitate the free takeback of EoL electronics under the WEEE directive, while mobile phone collection in practice is accomplished via a variety of voluntary takeback schemes – postal services, courier, in-store, etc. – administered by a diversity of actors (Ongondo and Williams, 2011, Ongondo et al., 2011).
Once a phone has been collected, a decision is made concerning its fate. Possible fates of EoL phones include recycling, parts reuse, slight repair, and full refurbishing. Often, the first step after collection involves the sorting and the categorization of phones, for instance into reusable, damaged and obsolete devices. Directly reusable devices generally undergo a quality control process with quick cosmetic cleanup, while damaged devices may undergo a more extensive refurbishing and repair process (Ponce-Cueto et al., 2010). Phones that cannot be reused are usually sent to recyclers
to undergo metal recovery. Research in the USA found that approximately 65-75% of a particular large batch of collected phones were slated for refurbishing, while only 25-35% were recycled (Most, 2003; Neira et al., 2006).
2.2 Export
At some point during this decision process, a large number of EoL phones make their way from the industrialized economies where they were collected to various developing and emerging economies around the world. The exact magnitude of these flows is unknown. A 2003 report suggests that much of this export is carried out by so-called aggregators, companies that purchase EoL phones from collectors and sell them in large blocks both domestically and abroad (Most, 2003). Refurbishers in the UK export most EoL phones to Africa, the Far East, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and in the USA to Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe (Geyer and Blass, 2010). EoL phones from Spain are sent to China, South Africa and India, and spare parts are often sent to China (Ponce-Cueto et al., 2010).
While the export of waste electronics products is banned under the Basel Convention, an exception is made for reusable products and components, including mobile phones. This loophole, and the fact that the USA is not a signatory party to the Basel Convention, mean that the global flows of mobile phones are largely market driven. In most industrialized countries, there currently exists only a small domestic market for EoL mobile phones, usually used as pre-paid phones or as an emergency phones for domestic violence. Though often functional, these phones tend to be outmoded and less appealing to the majority of industrialized country consumers. In developing and emerging economies, however, refurbished phones are an inexpensive alternative for people who might not otherwise be able to afford mobile devices.
The fate of exported EoL phones upon arrival in the ports of developing and emerging economies has been illuminated by several anecdotal reports. One study describes how mobile phones are imported by the shipping container to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and then are fixed or cannibalized for parts in the stalls of a local market (Mooallem, 2008). According to this study, a large number of these phones – in particular the cheaper, more heavily used ones – are then purchased by African exporters and sold in poorer African villages. Another report details the process by which hundreds of companies housed in a couple large buildings in Shenzhen, China, systematically squeeze the functional value out of imported phones – bits of metal are painstakingly extracted from plastic shells; components are individually tweezed from wiring boards and sorted; and the most valuable chips are reprogrammed and repackaged to be used in building new devices (Kousemaker, 2010).
In many ways, the export of EoL phones from industrialized to developing and emerging economies is socially beneficial. Not only does it help to ensure widespread access to mobile communication in the developing world, it also enables greater extraction of the functional value of EoL phones. The low labor costs and highly developed informal recycling infrastructures present in many developing and emerging economies like China allow for the laborious extraction of functional value. From a holistic perspective, this might be considered an efficient and elegant
recycling process compared with the technologically advanced, but somewhat ham-handed e-waste recycling processes typical of industrialized economies.
2.3 Recycling and disposal
The real problem with this dynamic has to do with the phones and components that cannot, in one way or another, be reused and with those reused phones that get to the end of their second life cycle. In many places, crude, dangerous and highly polluting metal recovery processes are employed to extract the material value from imported phones and components. Informal metal recovery operations routinely involve backyard smelting processes that produce fugitive emissions and heavy-metal laden slag that is often disposed of in open dumps (Joseph, 2007). Furthermore, the fraction and variety of metals recovered is significantly less than in the high-tech operations of many industrialized economies. Only 25% of gold, silver and palladium are typically recovered in the backyard recycling operations of developing economies, compared with 95-99% of these metals in state-of-the-art operations in the industrialized world (Rochat et al., 2007). Advanced metal recovery operations such as that of Umicore Precious metals refining in Belgium are furthermore capable of recovering up to 17 different metals from mixed electronics waste (Hagelueken and Meskers, 2009), compared with just a handful of metals in backyard operations.
In some countries of the developing world, even rudimentary metal recovery operations are not commonly employed. In Nigeria, discarded mobile phones components are simply managed together with other municipal solid waste streams (Osibanjo and Nnorom, 2008). After collection, these wastes are most often burned before final disposal in unlined and unmonitored landfills (Osibanjo and Nnorom, 2008). Not only are large amounts of valuable and scarce metals lost as a result of such practices, but toxic substances may leach into important waterways.
Furthermore, this informal process serves as the only source of income to many poor families. Eliminating it destroys their livelihood. The answer is thus not simply to ban or otherwise do away with informal recycling operations – this has also been found to be all but impossible (Chi et al., 2011) – but to deal with the dynamic of EoL phone export holistically, considering all aspects from collection to metal recovery. In the remainder of this paper, we provide an overview of insights derived from a set of simulation models focusing on various aspects of this dynamic.
3 Approach - overview of the models
The section briefly introduces the models from which we seek to extract insights for improving metal recovery.
3.1 Model 1: A system dynamics model of the global mobile phone EoL ecosystem
The first model employs the technique of system dynamics to explore the global flows of metals in mobile phones. System dynamics is a simulation modeling technique in which a real-world system is represented as an interconnected set of stocks, flows and informational relations. In the case of this model, these elements correspond to the various accumulations, fluxes and decision processes associated with the global circulation of mobile phones.
The structure of stocks, flows and informational relations in the model is divided into two main “sectors” – a developing countries sector and an industrialized countries sector. This distinction enables the incorporation of several important differences between the manner in which mobile phones are dealt with in developing/emerging vs. industrialized economies, e.g. the operational costs of processes, the preferences of consumers and the metal recovery rates of recycling operations. Both the developing countries sector and the industrialized countries sector consist of four interconnected “domains”, each dealing with a particular aspect affecting mobile phone flows within the respective sector. In the mobile phone flow domain, mobile phones are manufactured and travel through a web of stocks and flows representing the sale, use, collection, export and refurbishing of mobile phones. The trajectory of these phones through this set of stocks and flows is influenced by a variety of aspects, but is largely driven by economic factors. For instance, whether collected phones are refurbished, recycled or exported depends on the relative expected profit of these options. Further details about the setup of this model can be found in Bollinger et al. (2011) and Bollinger (2010).
The purpose of this model is to evaluate the role of various factors in contributing to the recovery of metals in mobile phones on a global scale. Twelve different factors are evaluated, including metal prices, monetary incentives for collection, the use time of mobile phones, the relative utility of refurbished vs. new phones to consumers, etc. The results from experimentation with the model are evaluated using several metrics, such as the total mass of gold disposed and a closed-loop indicator – a measure of the closed-loop performance of the modeled system in terms of metal flows.
3.2 Model 2: An agent-based model of the global mobile phone EoL ecosystem The second model employs the technique of agent-based modeling to explore the global mobile phone ecosystem. Agent-based modeling is a simulation modeling technique in which real-world actors are explicitly represented as software “agents”. These agents are assigned various attributes and decision making rules based on their behavioral characteristics, and then are released and allowed to interact within a defined digital simulation environment. Flow patterns are not pre-defined, but emerge as a consequence of these (multitudinous) interactions. Agents in this model represent different types of mobile phone manufacturers and recyclers, as well as collectors, refurbishers and 5 types of consumers differentiated according to their purchasing preferences. Unlike the first model, this model incorporates no clear differentiation between processes or actors located in developing vs. industrialized economies. However, a distinction is made between backyard metal recovery operations and more efficient industrial metal recovery operations.
Each agent in Model 2 is assigned a set of decision-making rules which govern actions such as the purchasing and processing of mobile phones and metals, and investment in additional operational capacity. Each agent also has one or more technological capabilities that endow him with the ability to process goods in a certain manner. For instance, manufacturers have the ability to transform defined amounts of certain metals into mobile phones with given sets of properties, and recyclers have the ability to transform mobile phones into defined amounts of various metals. Other agents, such as refurbishers, transform only the properties of mobile phones.
As in the case of the first model, the primary driver of flows through the modeled system is economic. Except for consumers, all agents seek to maximize profit. They accomplish this by engaging in strategic transactions with other agents – choosing contracts on the basis of their potential profitability – and by using their respective technological capabilities to transform or combine purchased goods such that the resulting output can be offered for sale to other agents. Unlike Model 1, however, the decision processes of agents feature a degree of bounded rationality – agents’ decision-making is limited by the information available to them. Further details about the setup of this model can be found in Bollinger et al. (2011) and Bollinger (2010). The purpose of Model 2 is identical to that of Model 1 – to evaluate the role of various factors in contributing to the recovery of metals in mobile phones on a global scale. The set of evaluated factors is similar, though not identical, to that of Model 1, and the same metrics are used to gauge the performance of the modeled system. The two models are different in that they employ different modeling techniques which entail different conceptualizations of the system - see Bollinger et al. (2011).
3.3 Model 3: An agent-based model of informal e-waste recycling in India The third model, developed and described in detail by Sheoratan (2011), uses the technique of agent-based modeling to explore dynamics within the informal e-waste recycling sector in Bangalore, India. The main agents in the model are representative of informal sector workers in Bangalore’s e-waste sector. These agents are differentiated into segregators, refurbishers and extractors, and may aggregate together under a “unit boss” to form a coherent recycling unit. Other agents in the model include a government agent and a professional, formal end-refiner, representative of a large foreign company with a high degree of technical knowledge and the capability to extract gold and other valuable metals from e-waste.
The focus of the model lies in evaluating several factors that might help to foster cooperation between informal recyclers and professional end-refiners for the purpose of improving metal recovery. During the course of a simulation, various dynamics play out. Recycling units buy products such as EoL computers, refurbishable parts and other components, process them and sell them; workers join recycling units; recycling units decide whether or not to register with the government (become formal); and the government carries out inspections of formal units and levies fines (Sheoratan, 2011). Analysis of results focused on comparing various factors to understand how they influence the decisions of informal recycling units to become formal and to initiate cooperation with professional end-refiners.
Unlike the first two models, various non-economic factors play an important role in the setup of this model. Amongst others, these social factors include corruption, child employment, patronage and family relations, and are intended to reflect the social realities of the informal e-waste sector (Sheoratan, 2011). Also different from the previous models, this model does not focus on mobile phones, but rather on EoL computers and their components. It is assumed in this paper that the insights derived from this model are also applicable to the case of EoL mobile phone.
4 Insights - improving metal recovery
This section extracts several insights from the results of the 3 models introduced above with respect to improving metal recovery in the context of global flows of EoL mobile phones.
4.1 The dual importance of reuse
The demand for low-cost refurbished phones by consumers in developing and emerging economies is an important driver for the export of EoL phones. As described above, the export of EoL phones can be seen as socially beneficial in that it helps to meet this demand and to ensure access to mobile communication by income consumers. The results from Model 1, however, suggest that demand for low-cost refurbished phones by developing country consumers may also be essential to enabling collection of mobile phones in many industrialized countries.
In Model 1, the mobile phone product system is represented as a set of interconnected stocks, flows and informational relations. After the end of a use period, the mobile phones of industrialized country consumers enter an “end-of-use stock”. A phone residing in this stock has several options. It may (1) stay in the stock for eternity, (2) exit through a municipal solid waste stream or (3) exit via a dedicated e-waste/mobile phone collection stream. The fate of a mobile phone in the end-of-use stock is determined by several factors – the motivation of consumers to correctly "dispose of" their end-of-use phones, the accessibility of collection pathways and the demand for mobile phones by collectors at that point in time. For a mobile phone to enter a dedicated collection pathway – the desirable option from a metal recovery perspective – these factors must sufficiently align.
An interesting finding of this model is the positive relationship between the fraction of end-of-life phones entering the "dedicated collection" pathway and the reuse fraction – the average number of times phones are reused during the course of a simulation. The key to this relationship is the network of informational relations in the modeled system. When consumer demand for used phones is low – e.g. as a result of a low used phone utility on the part of consumers or high "incentive costs"1 – demand for refurbished phones also becomes depressed. The depressed demand for refurbished phones reverberates through the system, moderating demand for collected phones, which in turn moderates demand for end-of-use phones. The reverse supply chain becomes backed up, causing fewer EoL phones in industrialized countries to be collected and more to be disposed via municipal waste streams or accrue in the hibernating stocks of consumers.
The lesson of this dynamic is clear – demand for low-cost refurbished phones in developing/emerging economies may be essential to stimulating the collection of end-of-use phones in the industrialized world. If mobile phones are not collected, they
1 Incentive costs – the financial incentive paid to incite consumers to deliver their phones for collection – effectively increase the operational costs of the collection process. Due to structural connections in the system, this increases the cost of refurbished phones for sale to consumers. This decreases the attractiveness (the utility-price ratio) of used phones to consumers, which, in turn, generates lower consumer demand for used phones.
cannot be recycled, and the metals within them become locked in mixed waste stocks or left in the drawers and closets of consumers. While this conclusion rests on several fundamental assumptions, amongst others that demand for end-of-use phones is driven exclusively by the financial interests of collectors, it offers a potentially relevant insight. If we cut the export link between industrialized and developing/emerging economies, we risk undermining collection processes in industrialized countries. Since collection is an essential first step to metal recovery, reduced collection also diminishes prospects for metal recovery.
While moderate levels of reuse may be essential to encouraging collection, and hence to enabling metal recovery, high levels of reuse can be detrimental to metal recovery. According to the results of Model 1, the highest metal recovery fractions (up to 0.95) occur at levels of reuse between 10% and 23%. Above this level, reuse diminishes metal recovery fractions, as more metals are lost via inefficient metal recovery processes.
4.2 Reuse, recycling and displacement
While a certain level of mobile phone reuse may be essential to enabling collection and metal recovery, the results from Model 2 suggest that high levels of reuse may be detrimental to the financial performance of mobile phone manufacturers. In this model, consumer agents demand mobile phones with a particular set of properties, which varies depending on the type of consumer. When the composition of consumers is such that a higher proportion of them are willing to purchase used or refurbished phones, the financial performance of producers and retailers drops markedly (by up to a factor of 12 according to Model 2).
This drop in financial performance has to do with displacement – the purchase of a used phone “displaces” the purchase of a new phone – which reduces the number of new phones sold by manufacturers. This phenomenon reflects a potential dilemma on the part of manufacturers – supporting high levels of reuse diminishes metal leakage from the system, but can be financially detrimental. According to the results of Model 2, the best way around this dilemma is the diversion of EoL phones to highly efficient metal recovery processes. This prevents displacement of phones and ensures a high level of metal recovery, thus aligning the environmental and financial interests of manufacturers.
This result would suggest that it may be in the financial interest of manufacturers, and beneficial in terms of metal recovery, to sever the export link between industrialized and developing/emerging economies, and focus on efficient metal recovery in industrialized countries. However, it is important to note that the assumption of displacement is a tenuous one. Many experts believe that refurbished phones are purchased largely by consumers who would not otherwise buy a mobile phone, and that reuse can even be regarded as stimulating future sales of new products (Geyer and Blass, 2010). From this perspective, reuse in developing countries could in fact be financially beneficial for manufacturers in the long-term.
Unfortunately, however, when the assumption of displacement is removed, the benefits of reuse in terms of reduced metal leakage are also removed. Greater sales of new phones by manufacturers mean more metals entering the system and more metals
being lost via inefficient metal recovery processes. Whether displacement is real or not, high levels of reuse in developing and emerging economies is not going to create a situation that is both environmentally and economically sustainable without improved metal recovery processes.
4.3 Leverage in the developing world
The results from Model 1 suggest that a degree of reuse in developing/emerging economies may facilitate EoL phone collection in the industrialized world. The results from Model 2, however, suggest that high levels of reuse in the developing world alone are unlikely to create a sustainable situation. These insights point towards the essentiality of improved metal recovery in the developing world. Given that advanced metal recovery processes are capital- and knowledge-intensive operations that are not easily transferred to the developing world, however, one possibility would be to re-export EoL phones and components that have been stripped of their functional value back to industrialized economies to undergo metal recovery.
This scenario could be beneficial in several ways. First, it would allow for metal recovery to take place in advanced facilities that are able to recover a larger proportion of metals using more environmentally benign processes. Second, it would preserve existing export links between industrialized and developing economies, which serve an important social function and drive collection in many industrialized economies. Third, it would preserve the advantages of EoL phone processing in developing economies in terms of the labor-intensive extraction of functional value. If done correctly, it would also help to preserve the livelihoods of workers in the informal sector, while reducing exposure to health risks. Establishing such a “reverse” e-waste link is currently the focus of an initiative involving Umicore Precious Metals Refining in Belgium together with several partners in India (Umicore, 2012).
The feasibility for establishing such a reverse link is the focus of Model 3, which explores the introduction of a professional end refiner into an informal e-waste ecosystem in Bangalore, India. This end refiner can buy collected and dismantled e-waste from local recyclers, but only if they make the leap to become formal themselves. The results from this model demonstrate the relevance of several key economic factors in incentivizing informal recyclers to make this leap – high starting capital, low tax rates, low investment costs and a high e-scrap handling price (Sheoratan, 2011). These results suggest that only bigger and more financially stable informal recyclers may be capable of formalization, and subsequently of entering into partnerships with professional end refiners. Furthermore, they indicate that financial assistance by NGOs, governments or other businesses may be beneficial in terms of supporting the development of win-win partnerships to improve developing world metal recovery processes.
The results from Model 3 are still only preliminary, and future models in this area have the potential to generate highly relevant insights. In particular, the technique applied in the development of Model 3 enables the systematic representation of non-economic factors that may play an important role in determining the success of initiatives to develop recycling partnerships. Within this context, Sheoratan (2011)
suggests several important directions for future modeling, including improved representation of institutions such as trust and patronage.
5 Conclusions
The purpose of this paper has been to shed some light on the dynamic of EoL mobile phone flows from industrialized to developing economies from different perspectives– what drives it, how does it hinder metal recovery and how can this be changed? The first part of the paper provided an overview of the various components of this dynamic. We described how collection processes vary between industrialized countries, and how they result in the export of EoL phones to the developing world; we used anecdotal reports to elaborate on the fates of these phones upon arrival; and we characterized the backyard recycling practices typical of developing and emerging economies.
The second part of this paper has sought to extract insights from the results of 3 different simulation models dealing with various aspects of this dynamic. The first model, taking a global scope, indicated towards the potential relevance of reuse in developing and emerging economies in facilitating EoL phone collection in the industrialized world. The second model, also taking a global scope, indicated that high levels of reuse in the developing world alone are unlikely to create a situation that is both environmentally and economically sustainable. The third model adopts a more local scope, focusing on the informal e-waste sector in Bangalore, India. Preliminary results from this model highlighted some factors that can play a role in supporting the development of partnerships between small-scale recyclers and professional end refiners for the purpose of improving metal recovery, such as high starting capital, low tax rates, low investment costs and a high e-scrap handling price. Against a background of rapidly growing mobile phone consumption in developing and emerging economies, falling use times and looming metal scarcity, finding better ways to deal with EoL phones is imperative. The current dynamic in which large numbers of EoL phones are exported from industrialized to developing and emerging economies results in the loss of significant amounts of scarce and valuable metals. This paper has shed some light on the factors that play a role in this dynamic and how metal recovery might be improved within this context.
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