An AHP approach to evaluate the implementation of WEEE management systems

Transcription

1 An AHP approah to evaluate the implementation of WEEE management systems CARMEN NADIA CIOCOIU, SOFIA ELENA COLESCA, ŞTEFAN BURCEA Faulty of Management Aademy of Eonomi Studies Piata Romana 6, Buharest ROMANIA Abstrat: This paper presents the Analytial Hierarhy Proess as a potential deision making method for the evaluation of implementation of WEEE management systems. The proposed model is based on the analysis of politial, eonomial, soial, tehnial and environmental issues that may affet a suessful implementation of WEEE management systems. The proposed model an help WEEE managers to understand more losely the deisive fators implied in the implementation of WEEE management systems. Key-Words: E-waste, WEEE/E-waste management systems, AHP, Criterion 1 Introdution Eah wave of tehnologial advanes in eletri and eletroni industries determined eonomi growth and improved people's lives [7]. The side effet of this improvement is the growing number of eletroni wastes in the waste streams. Therefore, proper treatment of this type of waste is important. Waste Eletrial and Eletroni Equipment (WEEE) diretive is an effort to redue eletroni and eletrial waste at European level to and improve its reovery and reyling. The proposal, along with the omplementary Diretive on the Restrition of the use of Certain Hazardous Substanes in Eletrial and Eletroni Equipment (ROHS) and the EoDesign Requirements for Energy Using Produts (EuP) Diretive, seeks to redue the environmental impats of WEEE throughout all stages of the equipment s lifeyle [11], [12]. Understanding the mehanisms and funtioning priniples of WEEE management systems an be possible after a areful identifiation and analysis of life yle of EEE from prodution phase until final disposal phase [6], [8]. In this regard, many researhers have performed systemati analysis of the various aspets onerning the management of WEEE. For example, Rousis et al. [15] used the MCDM method for the determination of the best WEEE management senario in Cyprus. Bereketli et al. developed a fuzzy LINMAP model for evaluation and seletion of a waste treatment strategy for EEE in Turkey [1]. Che [5] explored problems onerning prodution and delivery in a green supply hain, and onstruted an optimal mathematial model for the seletion of green partners when establishing a supply hain. 2 Problem Formulation The deision to implement a WEEE management system is a diffiult one beause is based on a lot of riteria. The various riteria used for evaluation of WEEE management systems use a multitude of measurement units. So, it is very diffiult to express them all in a single unit. A possible solution to this problem is AHP method (Analyti Hierarhy Proess) [16], a method largely used in eonomi researh [9], [4], [13]. It will not replae the deision-making proess itself but it will generate information needed to make the deision and will present it in a strutured way. The ritial omponent of suh deision-making is what the weights ought to be for the different riteria of evaluation. The AHP is a method of solving problems that involve prioritisation of alternative solutions and is based on the evaluation of a set of riteria. Sine a deision-maker bases judgments on knowledge and experiene and then makes deisions aordingly, the AHP approah agrees well with the behavior of a deision-maker. Therefore, our purpose was to test the AHP as a potential deision making method for the evaluation of implementation of WEEE management systems. The proposed model is based ISBN:

2 on the analysis of politial, eonomial, soial, tehnial and environmental (PESTE) issues that may affet a suessful implementation of WEEE management systems. The determination of evaluation riteria took plae on the basis of the existing experiene from other appliations and ahievement of suffiient overage of all harateristis of WEEE management systems. 18 individual riteria were seleted in total, ategorized in five groups, as desribed below. Politial and legislative riteria Compliane with EU legislation Availability and implementation of regulations is an important aspet of WEEE reyling. For a ountry of the EU is neessary that the WEEE management sheme adopted to be adjusted as the struture and mode of operation with the WEEE Diretive, but also with the other European diretives that are related diretly or indiretly with the management of WEEE. The development of legislation and ompliane struture as per EU diretives is an on-going proess in all EU ountries. The member states have to guarantee minimum olletion, reovery and reuse/ reyling targets as speified in the diretive. Harmonisation of national legislation The WEEE legislation is very omplex and inludes regulations regarding WEEE olletion, produer responsibility, olletive systems, export/import rules, dangerous substanes and treatment methods, et. Harmonization of WEEE national regulations and their implementation are major hallenges in WEEE management aross Europe. Harmonisation of all regulations regarding WEEE management ontributes to inreasing its effiieny by eliminating the possibilities of breaking the law. Inentives to redue environmental impat This ategory inludes produers inentives to develop produts with redued environmental impat at end-of-life and onsumer inentives to buy environmentally friendly produts. Green onsumer behaviour an be very strong engine to redue the environmental impats aused by WEEE [7]. Examples of green onsumer behaviour are listed below: To buy long lifespan produts; To buy produts with less harmful hemials; To buy produts with the deent reyle system; To buy produts of eo-friendly ompany; To utilise the leasing servie. It is essential that onsumers should be informed about the environmental issues related to what they buy and the fat they an hange produers attitude through their onsumption pattern. Eonomial riteria Contribution to the national eonomy Contribution of the WEEE management system to national eonomy is refleted in the GDP and state budget revenues. WEEE management is an important area of ativity in terms of employment and the reation of full-time and part-time jobs; this implies an inrease in ontributions to soial seurity budget. It is haraterized by propagation effets, with setor-speifi values and intensities, whih give a differential to eonomi and soial ontribution. Investment, operation and maintenane osts This riterion looks at the ost effiieny of the WEEE management sheme aording to 2 parameters. The first of these is the ost per kilogram of WEEE olletion and reyling. The seond is onerned with how revenues are budgeted, alloated and spent. There is a onflit between ensuring maximum ompliane and lowering osts. The lowest ost solution may ompromise the desired environmental outome. There a many false eonomy traps to fall into and it is important that there are aeptable and realisti ambitions for volumes, osts and standards [18]. Smaller distanes dramatially redue transport and logistis osts. Countries with higher populations and urban population densities are able to generate eonomi effiienies and eonomies of sale through the onentration of failities and their ability to generate higher WEEE volumes relative to osts. A system that handles greater volumes of waste will be able to obtain greater eonomi effiienies through rationalising its ontrats with suppliers and using its market power to negotiate better rates. Weight of informal setor Some of the major stakeholders, identified along the WEEE flow inlude importers, produers/ manufaturers, retailers (businesses/ government/ others), onsumers (individual households, businesses, government and others), traders, retailers, srap dealers, dissemblers/ dismantlers and reylers. At eah step in the flow, business transation defines the movement of the eletroni ISBN:

3 item in the flow. In many developing ountries, a majority of stakeholders in this ategory fall under unorganized/ informal setor [18]. The urrent informal WEEE-reyling system has signifiant impats on the eonomi development of WEEE system. Sine low level of investment is required in informal setor, small investors find WEEE trade as attrative business proposition, where the main inentive is finanial benefit irrespetive of environmental, oupational and health issues. The main obstale to better manage existing WEEE reyling system in the developing ountries is reforming the informal setor. Moreover, as a result of its negative impats on the environment and human health in the industrializing ountries, the informal setor is definitely a ruial and emerging issue, whih is needed to be better governed [6]. Obsolesene rate The effiieny of an waste reyling system in terms of output is dependent on quantity and quality of input raw material (WEEE). The quality of raw material is dependent on the type and obsolesene rate of the WEEE item, whih is dynami in nature. The inreased onsumption pattern leads to an inreased obsolesene rate of these produts, whih will result in the higher generation of eletroni waste. The key to estimate WEEE is fixing of obsolesene rate based on market researh data, industry data or on onsumer behaviour. Soial riteria Consumer awareness and attitude Ultimately, all existing European WEEE shemes owe a great deal of their suess to the prevailing onsumer attitudes and reyling behaviour in a given ountry. The level of WEEE reyling awareness in relation to speifi produt groups is also a key driver of suess. Even in those ountries that have a strong trak reord in WEEE reyling, it is proving diffiult to influene disposal behaviour in relation to new produt ategories suh as small bin-size items and items with pereived eonomi value suh as mobile phones, where olletion rates are signifiantly lower than in other ategories. The suess or failure of a WEEE programme will be in part ditated by the larity with whih it an be explained to the onsumer, and the ease with whih the onsumer an engage with the olletion and finaning system. All experts and managers reognize the need to improve the level and quality of ommuniation and publi awareness of WEEE and WEEE reyling remains an issue in all ountries. Generally, produers and importers are seen to be more onerned about ontrolling osts than inreasing WEEE volumes, so long as their legal obligations are met, there is little enthusiasm for exessive spend on onsumer awareness and publi relations ativities Loal muniipalities bear some responsibility in all of the ountries for informing residents about loal waste and reyling opportunities and there is the opportunity for a lak of lear responsibility. Soial aeptane of the WEEE management system The degree of soial aeptane of the proposed solution for WEEE management is dependent on many fators, suh as: the environmental reperussions that are aused by the existing management praties; the prevention/redution of environmental reperussions that will be ahieved via the adoption of new management praties; the awareness level of itizens on WEEE subjets, the eduational and professional level of itizens; the tax and legal obligations that will be introdued by the implementation of WEEE management system. [15]. CSR and NGOs initiatives CSR and NGOs an ontribute to the effetiveness of WEEE management system by: number of eduation ampaigns / awareness of onsumers, the volume of WEEE olleted through voluntary ativities; number of partners (authorities, produers, distributors, representatives of onsumers, professional assoiations, et.) involved in running projets on WEEE. Creation of new jobs Colletion, treatment and sorting are highly labour intensive ativities and ontain a signifiant labour omponent. WEEE-reyling omprises four major stages: olletion, disassembly, material reovery and final disposal. In every phase of WEEE management an reate new jobs, but these depend on the size of the informal setor. While olletion (and some disassembly) is arried out in deentralised systems following the ourrene of e- waste, the major part of disassembly and reovery of materials is widely entralized in WEEEreyling fatory. Tehnial riteria E-waste Treatment Systems Tehnologies are vital in the e-waste ISBN:

4 management hain to maximize the material reovery and minimize the risks. The WEEE Diretive defines ten speifi ategories of waste and eah of whih has its own distint and evolving ompositions. So it is essential that an appropriate reyling tehnology to be hosen for eah ategory. From this point of view it is important to determine layout and equipment speifiations for WEEE treatment faility. Loation of olletion point/ storage faility Loation of WEEE olletion points/storage failities is an important fator in e-waste systems. The loation may have an important impat beause the population of an area and the geography ould affet the type and the quantity of WEEE that is brought to site. Different riteria ould be used to identify these loations. Area of olletion point/ storage faility Area of olletion point and storage faility is an important feature for fixing up layout of storage area. Environmental riteria Environmental effets on air, water and ground pollution Eletrial and eletroni produts an affet the environment throughout their life yle from when raw materials are extrated from the earth to when materials from the produts are reused, reyled, reovered or disarded. As the materials ontained in different WEEE are substantially different, the environmental impat of WEEE depends on both the type of WEEE and the way it is treated. Potential impats omprise emissions of toxi substanes as well as ineffiient use of materials and energy. They an ontribute to global problems (ex. limate related impats) as well as loal impats (ex. eo-toxi emissions, damage to human health). Waste generation Many produts are disposed of as they still possess their full funtionality simply beause expanding performane and funtionality is presented to the ustomer in the shape of new produts [10]. The effet of this rapid innovation is an extremely high turnover of hardware and software whih result in an inreased amount of eletroni waste. Therefore, WEEE is the fastest growing waste stream in the EU onstituting 4% of the muniipal waste today, inreasing by 16-28% every five years - three times as fast as the growth of average muniipal waste [11], [12]. Studies of existing e-waste systems have suggested that their environmental effiieny an be substantially inreased by simply inreasing the perentage of e-waste reovered. [14], [17]. Resoure use Resoures use was highlighted as an important environmental riterion. Eletronis ontain substantial quantities of preious metals suh as gold, silver and platinum. The onentration of gold in a iruit board may be 40 to 800 times greater than that found in natural gold ore [3]. Therefore, mining e-waste for suh metals an be more effiient than mining the earth. However, despite the potential for inherent environmental benefit in mining e-waste, historially, the high osts of separating the aggregated materials in e-waste have limited the growth of e-waste reyling markets. As a result of WEEE reyling, greater levels of limited physial resoures will be available for use beause they will not be disposed of in landfill, and there will be less need to mine or produe virgin materials. Energy onsumption With the goal to solve the negative aspets indued by WEEE, in August 2007 entered into fore in EuP Diretive 2005/32/EC. The diretive aims to redue the energy use and other negative environmental impats throughout the life yle of produts powered by eletriity, fossil or renewable fuels. Tehnology is the most important soure of energy saving. Less energy is needed to produe the same amount of produt, using the same amount of equipment [2]. So, the tehnologial progress has led to an improvement of energy effiieny [7]. On the same time a bigger pool of eletroni produts appeared due to lower pries on eletroni produts, whih has the onsequene of inrease of energy onsumption. Stimulating different energy saving measures will have to be omplemented with reyling ations to takle this rebound effet. 3 Researh Methodology The aim of the model is to build a tool to help poliy makers or other stakeholders in the assessment phase of e-waste management projets. Based on the fats presented in the previous hapter, we present in Fig. 1 the struture of the model. In the next step, was alulated the weight of eah riterion using AHP method. Given a set of n evaluation riteria, we note with the relative of riterion i to riterion j. Pairwise omparation was made using the soring sale (adapted from [16]) in Table 1. ISBN:

5 Evaluation of WEEE management systems Politial and legislative riteria Compliane with EU legislation Harmonization of national legislation Inentives to redue environmental impat Eonomial riteria Contribution to the national eonomy Investment, operation and maintenane osts Weight of informal setor Obsolesene rate Soial riteria Consumer awareness and attitude Soial aeptane of the WEEE management system CSR and NGOs initiatives Creation of new jobs Tehnial riteria C n 1 n2 1n n =, ii = 1, ji = 1/, After normalization ( eah riterion is alulated: nn w = n = n j= i= 1 0 (1) ) the weight of i n (2) The presented algorithm was applied to eah level in the tree of riteria. 5 experts from from all Romanian ators involved in the field (suh as ompanies, assoiation of produers, loal authorities and researhers) did the evaluation of the riteria. The values alulated for the weight of eah riterion is shown in Figure 2. Evaluation of WEEE management systems Politial and legislative riteria 15% E-waste treatment systems Loation of olletion point/ storage faility Area of olletion point/ storage faility Environmental riteria Compliane with EU legislation Harmonization of national legislation Inentives to redue environmental impat Eonomial riteria 23% Environmental effets on air, water and ground pollution Waste generation Resoure use Energy onsumption Fig. 1 The struture of the model Table 1 - Soring sale for riteria omparison Intensity Evaluation Expliation , 4, 6, 8 Equal Weakly Essentially Very strongly Absolutely Intermediate values The spedified riteria ontribute equally to objetive A riterion is slightly favored ompared with other A riterion is learly dominates the other in A riterion is strongly favored ompared with other A riterion is unquestionably more important than other When ompromise is giving between two adjaent judgments Based on the suesive omparasions, results a n*n matrix (the matrix of relative of riteria) with the following struture: Contribution to the national eonomy Investment, operation and maintenane osts Weight of informal setor Obsolesene rate Soial riteria 20% Consumer awareness and attitude Soial aeptane of the WEEE management system CSR and NGOs initiatives Creation of new jobs Tehnial riteria 18% E-waste treatment systems Loation of olletion point/ storage faility Area of olletion point/ storage faility Environmental riteria 24% Environmental effets on air, water and ground pollution Waste generation Resoure use Energy onsumption Fig. 2 The weight of eah riterion ISBN:

6 4 Conlusions The AHP analysis led to the following ranking of the evaluation riteria: environmental (24%) eonomial (23%), soial (20%), tehnial (18%), politial (15%), giving to implied experts a way to inlude their opinion onerning the politial, eonomial, soial, environmental and tehnial impats of WEEE. The AHP makes group deisionmaking possible by aggregating judgments in a way that satisfies the reiproal relation in omparing two elements. There were several ways we ould use the information from the rankings. The most natural one would be to hoose those ations that ontribute the greatest relative weight to the overall objetive The proposed model has helped the WEEE experts to understand more losely the deisive fators implied in the implementation of WEEE management systems. This also helped the experts themselves to gain more knowledge about the WEEE field as they interat with their peers. Aknowledgments This work was arried was supported by CNCSIS UEFISCDI, projet number PNII IDEI 1834/2008. Referenes: [1] Bereketli Đ., Genevois Erol M., Albayrak Y.E. and Özyol M., WEEE treatment strategies' evaluation using fuzzy LINMAP method, Expert Systems with Appliations: An International Journal, 2011, Vol. 38, Issue 1 [2] Berkhout P. H.G., Muskens J. C. and Velthusen J. W., Defining the rebound efet, Energy Poliy 2000, Vol. 28, pp [3] Bleiwas D., Obsolete Computers, Gold Mine, or High-Teh Trash? Resoure Reovery from Reyling, U.S. Geologial Survey, Denver, CO, [4] Capaldo G., Iandoli L., Rippa P., Meranti S. and Trooli G., An AHP Approah to Evaluate Fators Affeting ERP Implementation Suess, Proeedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Siene 2008, WCECS 2008, Otober 22-24, 2008, San Franiso, USA [5] Che Z. H., Using fuzzy analyti hierarhy proess and partile swarm optimisation for balaned and defetive supply hain problems onsidering WEEE/RoHS diretives. International Journal of Prodution Researh, 2010, Vol. 48, Issue 11, pp [6] Ciooiu N., Burea S. and Tartiu V., The WEEE management system in Romania. Dimension, Strengths and Weaknesses, Theoretial and Empirial Researhes in Urban Management, 2010, No. 6(15), pp [7] Ciooiu C. N., Integrating digital eonomy and green eonomy: opportunities for sustainable development, Theoretial and Empirial Researhes in Urban Management, 2011, Vol. 6, Issue 1, pp [8] Ciooiu N., Burea S. and TârŃiu V., Environmental impat of ICT and impliations for e-waste management in Romania, Eonomia.Seria Management, vol. 13, issue 2, 2010, pp [9] Colesa S. E., Evaluation of town halls websites. The ase of Buharest, 15th International Business Information Management Assoiation Conferene. Knowledge Management and Innovation: A Business Competitive Edge Perspetive, 6-7 November 2010, Cairo, Egypt, pp [10] Erihsen H. and Willum O., Working report from the Danish EPA no. 28, LCA of mobile phones, environmentally sound developments in produt families, [11] EU Diretive 2002/96/EC on waste eletrial and eletroni equipment (WEEE) [12] EU Diretive 2002/95/EC on the restrition of the use of ertain hazardous substanes in eletrial and eletroni equipment (RoHS) [13] Lazim A. and Wahab N., A fuzzy deision making approah in evaluating ferry servie quality, Management Researh and Pratie, 2010, Vol. 2, Issue 1, [14] NERIC. Highlights of Two Major 2007 European Commission Reports on the WEEE Diretive [15] Rousis K., Moustakas K., Malamis S., Papadopoulos A. and Loizidou M., Multiriteria analysis for the determination of the best WEEE management senario in Cyprus, Waste Management, 28, 2008, pp [16] Saaty L.T., The Analyti Hierarhy Proess, MGraw-Hill International, New York, 1980 [17] UNU (United Nation University), Review of Diretive 2002/96 on Waste Eletrial and Eletroni Equipment (WEEE). Final Report 2008, 2007 [18] UNEP. E-waste Volume II. E-waste Management Manual, Available at: nual_vol2.pdf ISBN: