title: Estimation of retired mobile phones generation in China: A comparative study on methodology.
abstract: Due to the rapid development of economy and technology, China has the biggest production and possession of mobile phones around the world. In general, mobile phones have relatively short life time because the majority of users replace their mobile phones frequently. Retired mobile phones represent the most valuable electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) in the main waste stream because of such characteristics as large quantity, high reuse/recovery value and fast replacement frequency. Consequently, the huge amount of retired mobile phones in China calls for a sustainable management system. The generation estimation can provide fundamental information to construct the sustainable management system of retired mobile phones and other waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). However, the reliable estimation result is difficult to get and verify. The priority aim of this paper is to provide proper estimation approach for the generation of retired mobile phones in China, by comparing some relevant methods. The results show that the sales&new method is in the highest priority in estimation of the retired mobile phones. The result of sales&new method shows that there are 47.92 million mobile phones retired in 2002, and it reached to 739.98 million in China in 2012. It presents an increasing tendency with some fluctuations clearly. Furthermore, some discussions on methodology, such as the selection of improper approach and error in the input data, are also conducted in order to improve generation estimation of retired mobile phones and other WEEE.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, China. Electronic address: yangjx@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Jianxin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Cooperative Centre for WEEE Recycling, Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, Jinhai Road 2360, Pudong District, Shanghai 201209, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D040421:Cell Phone / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002681:China; D059029:Electronic Waste / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D059027:Recycling; D012037:Refuse Disposal / Q000379:methods
keywords: Estimation; Generation; Mobile phone; Retired; WEEE; Waste management