Evaluating Recycling Sustainability Performance of E-waste Products

This paper develops a new performance evaluation approach for evaluating the relative recycling sustainability performance of e-waste products in terms of their contribution to the corporate sustainability of an e-recycling company. A fuzzy pairwise comparison process is used to help make comparative assessments. A fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is used to give an overall sustainability performance score to each e-waste product, relative to others. A new optimal weighting model is developed to determine the optimal weights for the environmental, economic, and social sustainability dimensions that reflect the best sustainability interests of the e-recycling company. An empirical study is conducted to illustrate the approach.

[1]  L. Thurstone.  The method of paired comparisons for social values , 1927 .

[2]  Chiang Kao,et al.  Scale Efficiency Measurement in Data Envelopment Analysis with Interval Data: A Two-Level Programming Approach , 2011 .

[3]  G. Tzeng,et al.  Evaluating sustainable fishing development strategies using fuzzy MCDM approach , 2005 .

[4]  Gin-Shuh Liang,et al.  A soft computing method of performance evaluation with MCDM based on interval-valued fuzzy numbers , 2012, Appl. Soft Comput..

[5]  Chung-Hsing Yeh,et al.  Prioritizing management issues of moving dangerous goods by air transport , 2006 .

[6]  Violet N. Pinto.  E-waste hazard: The impending challenge , 2008, Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine.

[7]  Chung-Hsing Yeh,et al.  An integrated approach to evaluation and planning of best practices , 2012 .

[8]  Randolph Kirchain,et al.  Operational sustainability metrics assessing metric effectiveness in the context of electronics-recycling systems. , 2006, Environmental science & technology.

[9]  Simon French,et al.  Multi-criteria decision support and evaluation of strategies for nuclear remediation management , 2009 .

[10]  Chung-Hsing Yeh,et al.  A survey and optimization-based evaluation of development strategies for the air cargo industry , 2007 .

[11]  John Elkington,et al.  Partnerships from cannibals with forks: The triple bottom line of 21st‐century business , 1998 .

[12]  Edward Kavazanjian,et al.  Environmental, social, and economic implications of global reuse and recycling of personal computers. , 2008, Environmental science & technology.

[13]  Ching-Lai Hwang,et al.  Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making - Methods and Applications , 1992, Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems.

[14]  C. Hwang.  Multiple Objective Decision Making - Methods and Applications: A State-of-the-Art Survey , 1979 .

[15]  Chung-Hsing Yeh,et al.  Fuzzy multicriteria analysis for performance evaluation of bus companies , 2000, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[16]  Theodor J. Stewart,et al.  Multiple criteria decision analysis - an integrated approach , 2001 .

[17]  N. Subramanian,et al.  Factors for implementing end-of-life computer recycling operations in reverse supply chains , 2012 .

[18]  Rolf Widmer,et al.  Global perspectives on e-waste , 2005 .

[19]  A. Kaufmann,et al.  Introduction to fuzzy arithmetic : theory and applications , 1986 .

[20]  Joe Zhu,et al.  Airlines Performance via Two-Stage Network DEA Approach , 2011 .

[21]  İhsan Kaya,et al.  Evaluation of outsourcing alternatives under fuzzy environment for waste management , 2012 .

[22]  Craig W. Kirkwood,et al.  Strategic decision making : multiobjective decision analysis with spreadsheets : instructor's manual , 1996 .

[23]  Chung-Hsing Yeh,et al.  Modeling subjective evaluation for fuzzy group multicriteria decision making , 2009, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[24]  T. Saaty,et al.  The Analytic Hierarchy Process , 1985 .

[25]  Chung-Hsing Yeh,et al.  Inter-company comparison using modified TOPSIS with objective weights , 2000, Comput. Oper. Res..

[26]  C. Yeh,et al.  Evaluating passenger services of Asia-Pacific international airports , 2003 .

[27]  J. Buckley,et al.  Fuzzy hierarchical analysis , 1999, FUZZ-IEEE'99. 1999 IEEE International Fuzzy Systems. Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.99CH36315).

[28]  Ching-Lai Hwang,et al.  Multiple Attribute Decision Making: Methods and Applications - A State-of-the-Art Survey , 1981, Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems.

[29]  C. Kao,et al.  A mathematical programming approach to fuzzy efficiency ranking , 2003 .