Evaluation of most Suitable Electronic Waste Recycling Components from Economic and Environmental Point of View 1 .

Rapid growth in production and demand of electronic products, and their relatively short life cycle, have caused an increase in the amount of electronic waste produced, resulting in harmful elements for environment and human health. Computer related components (i.e. desktop computers; laptop and notebook computers; and servers) are major sources of this type of waste. China’s current annual e-waste volume is 2.3 million tons, second only to the United States’ 3 million tons. Much of North American countries’ e-waste ends up in China, where imports of e-waste are banned but largely tolerated. This project provides a multi-criteria decision analysis of several computer related components, based on PROMETHEE approach. Five parts in particular are considered for this evaluation: Hard Disk Driver (HDD), Compact Disk Driver (CDD), Power Supply Unit (PSU), Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) and Floppy Disk Driver (FDD). Three criteria are used in the evaluation: 1) Recycling cost related aspects like labor work, transportation, electricity, shredding, etc. 2) Revenue of recovered material in recycling; 3) Environmental impact of recycling the components. The environmental impact will be determined by modeling the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of each component, with the Eco-indicator ’99 tool. Through analysis and evaluation, data regarding recycling cost and revenue of the five computer components have been obtained; the positive environmental impact of the components’ proper handling will be analyzed; and the most suitable component from the economic and environmental point of view can be identified.