The dynamic behavior of a zero-to-landfill strategy for consumerproducts

摘要

Environmental strategies such as Zero-to-Landfill are gaining increasing attention throughout theworld. Product take back is a significant means of ensuring that products that have reached theend of their useful lives are reclaimed for reuse, remanufacturing, or recycling. Such a strategyis expected to minimize environmental impacts, reduce overall resource consumption, andprovide economic value to manufacturers and consumers. The reverse logistics, however, can bequite complicated as product collection, product disassembly, processing, component returns,and component reclamation must be considered. Further, the costs and magnitude of therequisite system must be projected to support appropriate planning and execution. In this paper,we present a model of a reverse logistics system for a consumer product. The impacts of closedlooppolicies on material reclamation, product adoption rate, and product costs are investigated.We illustrate how a reverse logistics approach may develop as a function of product adoption,the total value of returned components, product reliability, and product lifetime. A Zero-to-Landfill strategy has a significant potential to improve the triple bottom line – people, planet, andprofit – of companies that adopt it.