Research Challenges In City Logistics For Circular Supply Chains Of E-Waste

This paper presents challenges in city logistics for circular supply chains of e-e-waste. Efficient e-waste management is one of the strategies to save materials, critical minerals, and precious metals.

E-waste collection and recycling have gained attention recently due to lower collection and recycling rates. However, implementing circular urban supply chains is a significant economic transformation that can only work if coordination decisions are solved between the actors involved. On the one hand, this requires the implementation of efficient urban collection technologies, where waste collection companies collaborate with manufacturers, urban waste treatment specialists, and city logistics service providers supported by digital solutions for visibility and planning. On the other hand, it also requires implementing urban and regional ecosystems connected by innovative CO2-neutral circular city logistics systems. These systems must smoothly and sustainably manage the urban and regional flow of resources and data, often at a large scale and with interfaces between industrial processes, private, and public actors. This paper presents future research questions from a city logistics perspective based on a European project aimed at developing a blueprint for systemic solutions for the circularity of plastics from applications of rigid PU foams used as insulation material in refrigerators.