Title

Profit or Environment? A System Dynamic Model Analysis of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Management System in China

Abstract

In the past decade, sales of electrical and electronic equipment have undergone explosive growth worldwide, while at the same time, the life cycles of electrical and electronic equipment have been getting shorter. This has resulted in large numbers of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) being generated, which causes serious environmental problems that each country has to face. In this paper, we use the system dynamic method to analyze how China's "WEEE processing fund" policy, wherein levies or subsidies are set on appropriate targets, influences the economic and environmental conditions of participants in the WEEE management system. The simulations results suggest that the "WEEE processing fund" policy could improve the economic status of those receiving subsidies without losing the economic revenue from levies and improve the entire system's ability to recover and process waste equipment.

Keywords

Waste electrical and electronic equipment management, Waste electrical and electronic equipment processing fund, System dynamic model, Economic and environmental effects, China

Inquiries

Qinxin GUO
Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University

Enci WANG
School of Economics, Shanghai University, China

Yongyou NIE
School of Economics, Shanghai University, China

Junyi SHEN
Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration,
Kobe University
Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe
657-8501 Japan
Phone: +81-78-803-7036
FAX: +81-78-803-7059
and
School of Economics, Shanghai University, China