Business case Roteb: recovery strategies for monitors

Due to the introduction of extended producer responsibility, European Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are forced to set up a reverse logistic system for their discarded products. As part of this set-up, OEMs or their service providers have to determine strategies for the recovery of these products. This involves determining an optimal degree of disassembly and assigning optimal recovery and disposal options. In this paper, optimisation models presented in some of our earlier work, are applied in a business case. The case concerns the recycling of PC-monitors and was part of a broader pilot project at Roteb (the municipal waste company of Rotterdam, The Netherlands). By using the models, it is shown that the recycling costs can be reduced by about 25%. Additional cost savings are also indicated, resulting in overall savings up to 40%. Also, modelling issues are discussed in relation to models that can be found in the literature and finally directions for further research are pointed out. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.