Biomaterial Database

Measuring treatment costs of typical waste electrical and electronic equipment: A pre-research for Chinese policy making. 2016

Jinhui Li, and Qingyin Dong, and Lili Liu, and Qingbin Song

School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: jinhui@tsinghua.edu.cn.

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) volume is increasing, worldwide. In 2011, the Chinese government issued new regulations on WEEE recycling and disposal, establishing a WEEE treatment subsidy funded by a levy on producers of electrical and electronic equipment. In order to evaluate WEEE recycling treatment costs and revenue possibilities under the new regulations, and to propose suggestions for cost-effective WEEE management, a comprehensive revenue-expenditure model (REM), were established for this study, including 7 types of costs, 4 types of fees, and one type of revenue. Since TV sets dominated the volume of WEEE treated from 2013 to 2014, with a contribution rate of 87.3%, TV sets were taken as a representative case. Results showed that the treatment cost varied from 46.4RMB/unit to 82.5RMB/unit, with a treatment quantity of 130,000 units to 1,200,000 units per year in China. Collection cost accounted for the largest portion (about 70.0%), while taxes and fees (about 11.0 %) and labor cost (about 7.0 %) contributed less. The average costs for disposal, sales, and taxes had no influence on treatment quantity (TQ). TQ might have an adverse effect on average labor and management costs; while average collection and purchase fees, and financing costs, would vary with purchase price, and the average sales fees and taxes would vary with the sales of dismantled materials and other recycled products. Recycling enterprises could reduce their costs by setting up online and offline collection platforms, cooperating with individual collectors, creating door-to-door collection channels, improving production efficiency and reducing administrative expenditures. The government could provide economic incentives-such as subsidies, low-cost loans, tax cuts and credits-and could also raise public awareness of waste management and environmental protection, in order to capture some of the WEEE currently discarded into the general waste stream. Foreign companies with advanced WEEE utilization technology could invest or participate in this area, producing profits for themselves while helping to develop and implement environmentally friendly and energy-saving technologies applicable to the Chinese market.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D011050	Policy Making	The decision process by which individuals, groups or institutions establish policies pertaining to plans, programs or procedures.	Analysis, Policy,Policy Analysis,Policy Development,Analyses, Policy,Development, Policy,Developments, Policy,Making, Policy,Policy Analyses,Policy Developments
D002681	China	A country spanning from central Asia to the Pacific Ocean.	Inner Mongolia,Manchuria,People's Republic of China,Sinkiang,Mainland China
D003362	Cost-Benefit Analysis	A method of comparing the cost of a program with its expected benefits in dollars (or other currency). The benefit-to-cost ratio is a measure of total return expected per unit of money spent. This analysis generally excludes consideration of factors that are not measured ultimately in economic terms. In contrast a cost effectiveness in general compares cost with qualitative outcomes.	Cost and Benefit,Cost-Benefit Data,Benefits and Costs,Cost Benefit,Cost Benefit Analysis,Cost-Utility Analysis,Costs and Benefits,Economic Evaluation,Marginal Analysis,Analyses, Cost Benefit,Analysis, Cost Benefit,Analysis, Cost-Benefit,Analysis, Cost-Utility,Analysis, Marginal,Benefit and Cost,Cost Benefit Analyses,Cost Benefit Data,Cost Utility Analysis,Cost-Benefit Analyses,Cost-Utility Analyses,Data, Cost-Benefit,Economic Evaluations,Evaluation, Economic,Marginal Analyses
D003365	Costs and Cost Analysis	Absolute, comparative, or differential costs pertaining to services, institutions, resources, etc., or the analysis and study of these costs.	Affordability,Analysis, Cost,Cost,Cost Analysis,Cost Comparison,Cost Measures,Cost-Minimization Analysis,Costs and Cost Analyses,Costs, Cost Analysis,Pricing,Affordabilities,Analyses, Cost,Analyses, Cost-Minimization,Analysis, Cost-Minimization,Comparison, Cost,Comparisons, Cost,Cost Analyses,Cost Comparisons,Cost Measure,Cost Minimization Analysis,Cost, Cost Analysis,Cost-Minimization Analyses,Costs,Measure, Cost,Measures, Cost
D013660	Taxes	Governmental levies on property, inheritance, gifts, etc.	Institutional Tax,Institutional Taxes,Tax,Taxation,Tax, Institutional,Taxes, Institutional
D013690	Television	The transmission and reproduction of transient images of fixed or moving objects. An electronic system of transmitting such images together with sound over a wire or through space by apparatus that converts light and sound into electrical waves and reconverts them into visible light rays and audible sound. (From Webster, 3rd ed)	Televisions
D055615	Electrical Equipment and Supplies	Apparatus and instruments that generate and operate with ELECTRICITY, and their electrical components.	Electronic Equipment and Supplies
D059027	Recycling	The extraction and recovery of usable or valuable material from scrap or other discarded materials. (from McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 6th ed.)
D059029	Electronic Waste	Discarded electronic devices containing valuable and sometimes hazardous materials such as LEAD, NICKEL, CADMIUM, and MERCURY. (from http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/faq.htm#impact accessed 4/25/2010)	Electronic Wastes,Waste, Electronic,Wastes, Electronic
D018803	Models, Economic	Statistical models of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, as well as of financial considerations. For the application of statistics to the testing and quantifying of economic theories MODELS, ECONOMETRIC is available.	Economic Models,Economic Model,Model, Economic