Circular Inventory Management
How can enterprise inventory management systems support an efficient circular economy ?
Current inventory management systems like telecom inventory management helps in efficient operations like optimal use of the resources whilst in operations. However such systems play no role once the inventory is decommissioned or end-of-life. Could current enterprise inventory management systems like telecom inventory management be extended to support stages beyond decommissioning ? Could enterprise inventory management systems help in designing an efficient circular economy?
The massive e-waste problem
It’s estimated about 94% of the enterprises do not have proper e-waste collection systems. Almost all enterprises are willing to pay for the disposal of their e-waste through authorized collection centers and were in demand of adequate training and capacity building on e-waste management. However it’s estimated 26% of the e-waste is stored on-premises, without knowing what must be done with it due to lack of proper e-waste policy in the organization. Also about 31% of the e-waste is disposed to scrap dealers without knowing the impacts of informal recycling. Only about 16% e-waste reaches the recyclers with right equipment who can extract maximum value from the e-waste using scientific techniques.
The raw materials wasted in 2019 from e-waste is estimated to be worth 57 Billion USD with less than 10 Billion USD recycled. The e-waste produced world-wide in 2019 was 53.6 MT and is estimated to increase to 74.7 MT by 2030 which is an estimated 40% increase.
Researchers report that recovering gold, copper and other metals from e-waste is cheaper than obtaining these metals from mines. Researchers conclude that it costs 13 times more to obtain these metals from ore than from urban mining. It’s estimated that one metric ton of circuit boards can contain about 40 to 800 times the quantity of gold and 30 to 40 times the total of copper mined from one metric ton of ore . It’s far more efficient to extract a ton of gold from old circuit boards than it is from the ground. (One metric ton of circuit boards contains up to 800 times the amount of gold mined from one metric ton of ore). In addition other the precious and rare earth metals can be reclaimed through recycling with new innovative techniques.
Trends in improved e-waste recovery
Copper and gold, which make up more than half the value in e-waste. Modern treatment facilities can recover about 95% of input feed into useful products. For example Umicore in Hoboken, Belgium, a longstanding European metals refiner, is getting ever more of its raw materials from e-waste. Example : smelters can extract 400 grams (14 ounces) of gold from a metric ton (1.1 tons) of mobile phones, along with copper, silver, lead, tin and indium. After smelting, the metals in the waste stream are chemically separated. The plastic casings go into the smelter, where they are burned to provide most of the fuel for the facility.
- New companies are attacking the problem from multiple angles. Urban e-waste refineries are finding innovative ways to collect used electronics.
- Scientists have developed carbon nanotube technology to filter out extremely low concentrations of rare earth elements.
- Ronin8 Technologies has developed a process to recover the minerals used to make an iPhone by applying powerful underwater sound waves.
As these technologies become more widespread, extraction costs drop. What was an expense and inconvenience for the enterprises becomes, instead, a viable revenue source. Recycling and extraction of metals goes from a burden to a new profit opportunity. For example biodiesel. In short order, used cooking grease went from waste to commodity — to the point where restaurants now hire extra security to ensure their grease traps aren’t raided.
As new recyclers enter with innovations to improve the value they will increasingly need data about the input e-waste to effectively operate.
Tracking the inventory state beyond decommissioning
Currently most enterprise inventory management systems like telecom inventory management doesn’t handle any inventory beyond decommissioned state. It’s not very clear how the inventory is handled beyond decommissioned state. It’s as if from the systems point of view the inventory has disappeared into thin air. However reality is far from it. It could be any of the scenarios mentioned above i.e. either lying in a stockpile somewhere in the premises, with the personnel not sure how to deal with it or just disposed off which is later dealt by informal waste sector.
Logical inventory of the material composition
Further more every inventory item especially in a telecom service provider ecosystem is made of different material composition. The material composition is a critical data for aggregators /recyclers decide and prioritize the collection hence effectively recover the precious metals and maximize the value. However currently there is no logical inventory which is correlated with the actual physical inventory which details approximate material composition.
For example if certain telecom radio equipment is composed of significant percentage of aluminum / copper the energy savings from recycling saves 95% energy hence costs when compared to virgin raw materials. These are valuable savings to the producers who source such raw materials. However problem is currently there no data on the material composition of the e-waste generated from the enterprises. More importantly the recyclers /aggregators are completely unaware of availability of such a e-waste composition.
The carbon footprint inventory
Estimating carbon emission savings by recycling specific equipment is tricky. By mapping the carbon savings to the actual inventory , enterprises like telecom service providers can easily track the CO2e savings through recycling in a transparent manner, Increasingly enterprises are interesting in environment factors which could be actively advertised to prove their credentials like on the enterprise emission data points.
Connecting the inventory with the aggregators /recyclers
Tracking the state of a inventory item beyond decommissioned state to a new e-waste state could open up new possibilities. The enterprises can now digitally connect with the right recyclers and aggregators. Here managed service providers could further play a role in anonymizing and connecting the inventory to the aggregators / recyclers across multiple telecom service providers. Enriching the e-waste inventory with the material composition could help the aggregators / recyclers to prioritize the collection of highly valuable e-waste, hence enabling the enterprise to connect to the right aggregator / recycler who is capable of extracting maximum value from the e-waste. Further by enriching the carbon footprint inventory helps enterprises track the CO2e savings by in time recycling.
Tracing up the chain
Waste generated from manufacturing process is estimated to be much higher in value and addresses a much bigger potential area for recycling / recovery. Used materials in manufacturing, is estimated to make up about 3 percent of the waste in the world. Used electronics are just a fraction of that. By targeting manufacturers, we move material and energy recovery up the value chain prior to purchase into the enterprises and this will have a much more substantial impact. Similar to the above idea, the current inventory management systems could also possibly move up the chain cover the procurement process in terms of the material composition, carbon footprint especially by tracing the amount of wastage in producing any inventory item before planning provisioning in the enterprise. This wastage in manufacturing could potentially be then connected to the right aggregators/recyclers improving the circular economy even further.
Summary
Enterprise inventory management systems could potentially improve the circular economy and play a vital role by connecting the enterprises to the right recycler and at the same time track the carbon footprint. Further interconnecting the inventory systems of recyclers / aggregators to the enterprises could hopefully provide end-to-end tracking on how e-waste generated from manufacturing to dismantling was recovered and what percentage of materials were recovered in a transparent fashion. This would give a good idea of what proportion of the e-waste was actually wasted. Hopefully this story will give you more ideas on how enterprise systems could play a greater role in recycling and benefit the society.
