Disassembly and material recovery models for end-of-life electronics products

In spite of growing environmental concerns about the disposal of mass produced products, there are few products which are economically viable to recycle. In general recycling results in an increase in product life-cycle costs. Increasing the efficiency of recycling operations will reduce the economic burden of recycling, thus providing an additional incentive for recycling.. This paper presents models that consider the options of disassembly and material recovery for electronics products. Mathematical programming models, representative of the many choices for recycling are presented as well as a numerical illustration highlighting the use of the model for selecting the best recycling options.