Measurements of Recycling E-Waste

¶ … recycling company which will located in every apple store worldwide. In this essay please answer the question below according to this project.

Consider the goals (to open a stand in every apple store for people to recycle their products) that you and your team have established as a result of your research project thus far, and define a set of metrics to reflect either LCA or measuerable goals of your venture:

Our objective is defining a set of metrics to measure the measurable goals of our organization.

The aim of our organization is to recycle e-waste. E-waste is all things connected to computer and electronics such as printing material, DVD, apps, cellular phones, and so forth. There is a huge amount of e-waste that occurs and that ruins the environment. What we would like to do is to make the public aware of this problem and set up a program (similar to that of corporations such as Apple, Sony, and Salvation Army), that will recycle the e-waste.

In order to document our success, we need to implement a structure of metrics that we can use to measure whether or not our program is succeeding and if so to which success. The metrics are important because they tell us whether we need to rethink certain aspects of our program and assess how to improve it. They also point direction to specific aspects that need improving. Best of all, they enable us to implement change, monitor the change, and be on top of our idea.

Apple uses a set of metrics of evaluating their recycling program and it is so creative and helpful that we may model their system for ours that we will place in their stores.

Apple Corp. has their recycle bins where people deposit their e-waste. Every recycle bin has an identification tag that is recorded by the recycling truck which, in turn, converts the amount to RecycleBank points. This is then tallied and people are rewarded according to the number. THe identification tag serves as the metric since it keeps count of the frequency and total of mass that is recycled.

This idea is creative in a number of ways:

1. It helps Apple (and us who model it) measure success of the program.

2. It also helps them measure various variables such as whether there are areas that the program is more successful in than others. Whether there are periods that correlate with greater recycling. Whether certain socio-economic sectors are more attuned to recycling than others; whether private individuals are more interested in recycling e-waste than businesses and so forth. Based on this information, we can fine-tune our system and decide how to modify it if at all. It may be that the rewards need to heightened or diversified in order to attract the targeted diversity of people.

3. The program (with the incentive) also motivates people to recycle their e-waste

4. The program calls publicity to the problem of e-waste.

As regards LCA in connection to this assignment, we would measure the pounds of e-waste and the percentage of recycling material that we receive per district (0r per State). This would also inform us regarding how to direct our activities and information.

2. In addition to the detailed description of metrics, write a few sentences describing the metrics or measureable goals of your team project which are harder to define (less practical, and difficult to quantify), and why.