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Summary The rapid technological evolution and adoption of consumer electronics highlights a growing need for adaptive methodologies to evaluate material consumption at the intersection of technological change and increasing consumption. While dematerialization and the circular economy (CE) have both been proposed to mitigate increasing material consumption, recent research has shown that these methods may be ineffective at achieving net material use reduction: When focused on specific products, these methods neglect the effects of complex interactions among and increasing consumption of consumer electronic products. The research presented here develops and applies a material flow analysis aimed at evaluating an entire “product ecosystem,” thereby including the effects of increasing consumption, product trade‐offs, and technological innovations. Results are then used to evaluate the potential efficacy of “natural” dematerialization (occurring as technology advances or smaller products substitute for larger ones) and CE (closing the loop between secondary material supply and primary material demand). Results show that material consumption by the ecosystem of electronics commonly used by U.S. households peaked in 2000. This consumption relies on increasingly diverse materials, including gold, cobalt, and indium, for whom secondary supply is still negligible, particularly given low recovery rates, often less than 1%. Potential circularity metrics of material “dilution,” “dispersion,” and “demand mismatch” are also evaluated, and indicate that CE approaches aimed at closing the loop on consumer electronic material still face several critical barriers particularly related to design and efficient recycling infrastructure.
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This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2026
A System-Dynamics Based Approach for Modeling Circular Economy Networks: Application to the Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Supply Chain
The transition to a circular economy (CE) requires agents in circular supply chain (SC) networks to take a variety of different initiatives, many of which are dynamic in nature. We use a system dynamics (SD)-based approach to develop a generic framework for dynamic modeling of CE networks and propose a prototypical circular SC network by combining dynamic models for five actors: a manufacturer, consumer, material recovery facility (MRF), recycling facility, and the Earth. We apply this framework to the supply chain for Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) plastic packaging by considering different scenarios over a 65-year time horizon in the US. We include both slow-down-the-loop initiatives (i.e., those that extend product use time through demand reduction or reuse) and close-the-loop initiatives (i.e., those that reintroduce product to the supply chain through recycling) by the consumer, as well as sorting and recycling capacity expansion. We find that, given the current recycling infrastructure in the U.S., slow-down-the-loop initiatives are more effective than close-the-loop initiatives for improving circularity and minimizing environmental impact. However, combining the two initiatives eliminates the need for capacity expansion and leads to the highest circularity in the shortest amount of time.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2339068
- PAR ID:
- 10627588
- Publisher / Repository:
- PSE press
- Date Published:
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 595 to 600
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Ghent, Belgium
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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