The different business models for recycling PV modules are analyzed under the background of PV te... more The different business models for recycling PV modules are analyzed under the background of PV technology progress and its development trend in China. The cost and revenue analysis of recycling is conducted for two mainstream PV technologies in China, polycrystalline silicon and CIGS solar cells. The national stock of semiconductor materials of these two PV technologies by 2020 is estimated according to the installment target set by Chinese Strategic Action Plan for Energy Development (2014-2020). The results show that the revenue of recycling, which mainly comes from the recovered semiconductor materials, can surpass the cost for recycling at current price for both technologies. Two uncertainties for PV recycling business are discussed: (1) the impact of market dynamics of the semiconductor materials on the revenue; and (2) the different spatial patterns of PV application on the cost of reverse logistics. In conclusion, we suggest applying extended producer responsibility principle in PV industry concerning both material choice and business models in development of PV technology.
Waste is wicked because of its inextricable mix of social, economic, and environmental attributes... more Waste is wicked because of its inextricable mix of social, economic, and environmental attributes. This paper presents the unexpected explosion of a " waste city " , Dongxiaokou, on the northern fringe of Beijing in the 2000s and its recent crash due to urban expansion. These events occurred within the background of the municipality's efforts to remake the waste/recycling space into an " urban circular economic system ". We illustrate the distressing challenge of waste as it is gradually exposed to urban governance in China. Our findings show that waste can be wicked because of the limits of its problem definition, which focuses on the environment and resources, but excludes the migrant scavengers from the local citizenry regardless their efforts for inclusion by the city. This limitation of the definition of the problem leads to conflicting values on waste and recycling between various stakeholders who are involved when the system needs to be upgraded. Conclusions suggest collaborative initiatives at the community level to build an inclusive space for recycling activities in cities in China.
ABSTRACT The EU directives on e-waste management (WEEE and RoHS) have drawn the attention of elec... more ABSTRACT The EU directives on e-waste management (WEEE and RoHS) have drawn the attention of electronics producers around the world to the environmental benign technologies in recent years. One of the technological challenges to the electronics manufacturers is the adoption of the lead-free soldering system. This article studies the diffusion of lead-free soldering technology among the electronics producers in China, and finds out the relevance of clusters for the diffusion of environmental benign technological innovation among firms. Four agents, as key promoters, were identified within the production network –leading global brand-name companies, the OEM companies who provide integrated manufacturing service, the suppliers of lead-free components, and specialized consultant companies. The conclusion is that industrial cluster facilitates communications among all agents for the diffusion of innovation, whereas, the incentives for firms within the cluster, to collaborate for innovation, comes from outside.
Mixed-use development has been widely accepted as a strategy in urban planning to address the pro... more Mixed-use development has been widely accepted as a strategy in urban planning to address the problems resulted from the traditional zoning in the West, and it has also been increasingly adopted in many Chinese cities in recent decades with quite different results. However, few studies have provided empirical support to the claimed benefits of mixed-use development and little is known about the process to achieve the desired benefits of mixed-use. This paper reports our investigation of three typical urban development models commonly used in China -''top-down'' centrally-controlled development model, ''bottom-up'' individual-dominant development model, and ''bottom-up'' collective-dominant development model. Using Southern Changping of Beijing as a case study, where the mixed-use development has been adopted in the past decade, we conduct a systematic evaluation of the three approaches and assess the impacts of mixed-use on urban development in Beijing. By conducting questionnaire analysis and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare the job-housing pattern, career development of residents, sense of community and community vitality of the three models, the paper discovers that the community under ''bottom-up'' collective-dominant development model effectively achieved mixed-use development, while the ''top-down'' centrally-controlled development may lead to functional division and the ''bottom-up'' individual-dominant developed community ended up in disorder and chaos. Our findings indicate that under current policy framework and development trends in China, the ''bottom-up'' collective-dominant development model and social inclusion would be an effective way to achieving the intended goals of the mixed-use development.
China implemented its e-waste policy in 2012, declaring adherence to the principle of Extended Pr... more China implemented its e-waste policy in 2012, declaring adherence to the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility. Public planning, policies and demonstration projects for recycling facilities have been promoted widely at city and provincial levels to rebuild the image of e-waste management in China. This article traces the evolution of e-waste recycling practices in China, from imported e-waste recycling clusters in coastal rural areas and e-waste disassembly and trading bazaars in suburban areas of big cities to certified e-waste recyclers subsidised by the government, as well as the waste reduction and recycling efforts of electronics producers. We draw out the logic underpinning the planning of large-scale collection and sorting centres -armed with automated equipment -to replace the labourintensive sorting activities prevalent in the waste villages. By deconstructing and analysing the discourses of e-waste recycling, which discriminate recycling practices into formal and informal categories, we point out the limits of formalisation, which favours short and standard shredding for material recovery instead of reuse.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR), which assigns significant responsibility to producers to ... more Extended producer responsibility (EPR), which assigns significant responsibility to producers to take back their end-of-life products to create incentives for redesign of products with lower life cycle environmental impacts, has come to a crossroad facing a trade-off between the original innovation-oriented regime design and the cost-efficiency challenges in practice. This is particularly true in its implementation in non-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries as they are trying to transplant the "best practices" from OECD countries, for there is increasing skepticism as to whether EPR is suitable for developing countries at all. As an important producer of electronic products and destination of electronic waste (e-waste) flows in the world, China has been expected to play a vital role in the evolution of global governance based on the idea of EPR, either to create new ways for producers to perform their end-of-life strategies, or to reshape the mode of production and consumption with its fast-growing market. However, the establishment of EPR in China has been long and full of difficulties. This article reviews the status and trends in the establishment of an EPR system for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) management in China. We use the framework of a multilevel perspective of transition theory in our analysis to characterize the complex interactions among various agents in the evolution of the Chinese system from initial innovation-oriented design to the current efficiency-oriented version. An ongoing research framework for evaluation of the EPR program in China is outlined as the research agenda in coming years.
The paper examines the diffusion of lead-free soldering in ICT manufacturers in China as response... more The paper examines the diffusion of lead-free soldering in ICT manufacturers in China as response to EU's RoHS directives, in order to investigate the global-local networks linking the lead market with the producers in developing countries. The result shows rapid diffusion of the technological change triggered by such regulation among Chinese firms. The diffusion however occurs at varied rates in different regions, depending on their export orientation. The logistic regression model shows that, other than firm attributes, such as the position in the product chains and the firm-level environmental performance, two geographical factors, i.e., target markets and local cluster effects, are also significant in influencing firm's technological choices, while capital sources is less important.
Industrial Ecology is looking for new tools to combine social and economic dimensions with the al... more Industrial Ecology is looking for new tools to combine social and economic dimensions with the already well developed physical flow analysis of the human economic system. This article introduces a tool from social network analysis as complementary to the existing multilevel substance flow analysis by exploring the concept of space and region, in which substance flows happen. We use the blockmodel from network analysis in the characterization of the multilevel anthropogenic copper cycle to group countries according to their structural equivalence in the international trade networks related to copper, instead of using a priori aggregation standards, such as geographical proximity, GDP per capita, or widely accepted classification of industrial/developing countries. This approach depicts the patterns of material movement through trade, which reflects the inherent structure of the world system regarding copper production and consumption. The results highlight the uneven distribution of global copper stocks and flows across countries in the middle 1990s, and illustrate the core-peripheral structure among different country groups, in which a close interconnected core exist with sparse ties to peripheral groups, and copper are flowing from the peripheral to the core in terms of net flows.
Two geographers residing in Beijing discuss the inflows, processing, and consumption of electroni... more Two geographers residing in Beijing discuss the inflows, processing, and consumption of electronic waste-a topic largely neglected in the current literature on globalization. Based on extensive interviews with electronics producers and recyclers in China from 2002 to 2003, the paper explores the global flows of e-waste and concentration of related recycling in coastal China. The authors suggest that recycling activities (authorized as well as illegal) grew in tandem with the dramatic increase in electronics production during the last decade. They note that the country's recycling sector has played a significant role in rural industrialization and local economic development, albeit in conflict with the objectives of environmental protection. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F20, L63, O17, O19. 6 figures, 22 references.
The different business models for recycling PV modules are analyzed under the background of PV te... more The different business models for recycling PV modules are analyzed under the background of PV technology progress and its development trend in China. The cost and revenue analysis of recycling is conducted for two mainstream PV technologies in China, polycrystalline silicon and CIGS solar cells. The national stock of semiconductor materials of these two PV technologies by 2020 is estimated according to the installment target set by Chinese Strategic Action Plan for Energy Development (2014-2020). The results show that the revenue of recycling, which mainly comes from the recovered semiconductor materials, can surpass the cost for recycling at current price for both technologies. Two uncertainties for PV recycling business are discussed: (1) the impact of market dynamics of the semiconductor materials on the revenue; and (2) the different spatial patterns of PV application on the cost of reverse logistics. In conclusion, we suggest applying extended producer responsibility principle in PV industry concerning both material choice and business models in development of PV technology.
Waste is wicked because of its inextricable mix of social, economic, and environmental attributes... more Waste is wicked because of its inextricable mix of social, economic, and environmental attributes. This paper presents the unexpected explosion of a " waste city " , Dongxiaokou, on the northern fringe of Beijing in the 2000s and its recent crash due to urban expansion. These events occurred within the background of the municipality's efforts to remake the waste/recycling space into an " urban circular economic system ". We illustrate the distressing challenge of waste as it is gradually exposed to urban governance in China. Our findings show that waste can be wicked because of the limits of its problem definition, which focuses on the environment and resources, but excludes the migrant scavengers from the local citizenry regardless their efforts for inclusion by the city. This limitation of the definition of the problem leads to conflicting values on waste and recycling between various stakeholders who are involved when the system needs to be upgraded. Conclusions suggest collaborative initiatives at the community level to build an inclusive space for recycling activities in cities in China.
ABSTRACT The EU directives on e-waste management (WEEE and RoHS) have drawn the attention of elec... more ABSTRACT The EU directives on e-waste management (WEEE and RoHS) have drawn the attention of electronics producers around the world to the environmental benign technologies in recent years. One of the technological challenges to the electronics manufacturers is the adoption of the lead-free soldering system. This article studies the diffusion of lead-free soldering technology among the electronics producers in China, and finds out the relevance of clusters for the diffusion of environmental benign technological innovation among firms. Four agents, as key promoters, were identified within the production network –leading global brand-name companies, the OEM companies who provide integrated manufacturing service, the suppliers of lead-free components, and specialized consultant companies. The conclusion is that industrial cluster facilitates communications among all agents for the diffusion of innovation, whereas, the incentives for firms within the cluster, to collaborate for innovation, comes from outside.
Mixed-use development has been widely accepted as a strategy in urban planning to address the pro... more Mixed-use development has been widely accepted as a strategy in urban planning to address the problems resulted from the traditional zoning in the West, and it has also been increasingly adopted in many Chinese cities in recent decades with quite different results. However, few studies have provided empirical support to the claimed benefits of mixed-use development and little is known about the process to achieve the desired benefits of mixed-use. This paper reports our investigation of three typical urban development models commonly used in China -''top-down'' centrally-controlled development model, ''bottom-up'' individual-dominant development model, and ''bottom-up'' collective-dominant development model. Using Southern Changping of Beijing as a case study, where the mixed-use development has been adopted in the past decade, we conduct a systematic evaluation of the three approaches and assess the impacts of mixed-use on urban development in Beijing. By conducting questionnaire analysis and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare the job-housing pattern, career development of residents, sense of community and community vitality of the three models, the paper discovers that the community under ''bottom-up'' collective-dominant development model effectively achieved mixed-use development, while the ''top-down'' centrally-controlled development may lead to functional division and the ''bottom-up'' individual-dominant developed community ended up in disorder and chaos. Our findings indicate that under current policy framework and development trends in China, the ''bottom-up'' collective-dominant development model and social inclusion would be an effective way to achieving the intended goals of the mixed-use development.
China implemented its e-waste policy in 2012, declaring adherence to the principle of Extended Pr... more China implemented its e-waste policy in 2012, declaring adherence to the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility. Public planning, policies and demonstration projects for recycling facilities have been promoted widely at city and provincial levels to rebuild the image of e-waste management in China. This article traces the evolution of e-waste recycling practices in China, from imported e-waste recycling clusters in coastal rural areas and e-waste disassembly and trading bazaars in suburban areas of big cities to certified e-waste recyclers subsidised by the government, as well as the waste reduction and recycling efforts of electronics producers. We draw out the logic underpinning the planning of large-scale collection and sorting centres -armed with automated equipment -to replace the labourintensive sorting activities prevalent in the waste villages. By deconstructing and analysing the discourses of e-waste recycling, which discriminate recycling practices into formal and informal categories, we point out the limits of formalisation, which favours short and standard shredding for material recovery instead of reuse.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR), which assigns significant responsibility to producers to ... more Extended producer responsibility (EPR), which assigns significant responsibility to producers to take back their end-of-life products to create incentives for redesign of products with lower life cycle environmental impacts, has come to a crossroad facing a trade-off between the original innovation-oriented regime design and the cost-efficiency challenges in practice. This is particularly true in its implementation in non-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries as they are trying to transplant the "best practices" from OECD countries, for there is increasing skepticism as to whether EPR is suitable for developing countries at all. As an important producer of electronic products and destination of electronic waste (e-waste) flows in the world, China has been expected to play a vital role in the evolution of global governance based on the idea of EPR, either to create new ways for producers to perform their end-of-life strategies, or to reshape the mode of production and consumption with its fast-growing market. However, the establishment of EPR in China has been long and full of difficulties. This article reviews the status and trends in the establishment of an EPR system for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) management in China. We use the framework of a multilevel perspective of transition theory in our analysis to characterize the complex interactions among various agents in the evolution of the Chinese system from initial innovation-oriented design to the current efficiency-oriented version. An ongoing research framework for evaluation of the EPR program in China is outlined as the research agenda in coming years.
The paper examines the diffusion of lead-free soldering in ICT manufacturers in China as response... more The paper examines the diffusion of lead-free soldering in ICT manufacturers in China as response to EU's RoHS directives, in order to investigate the global-local networks linking the lead market with the producers in developing countries. The result shows rapid diffusion of the technological change triggered by such regulation among Chinese firms. The diffusion however occurs at varied rates in different regions, depending on their export orientation. The logistic regression model shows that, other than firm attributes, such as the position in the product chains and the firm-level environmental performance, two geographical factors, i.e., target markets and local cluster effects, are also significant in influencing firm's technological choices, while capital sources is less important.
Industrial Ecology is looking for new tools to combine social and economic dimensions with the al... more Industrial Ecology is looking for new tools to combine social and economic dimensions with the already well developed physical flow analysis of the human economic system. This article introduces a tool from social network analysis as complementary to the existing multilevel substance flow analysis by exploring the concept of space and region, in which substance flows happen. We use the blockmodel from network analysis in the characterization of the multilevel anthropogenic copper cycle to group countries according to their structural equivalence in the international trade networks related to copper, instead of using a priori aggregation standards, such as geographical proximity, GDP per capita, or widely accepted classification of industrial/developing countries. This approach depicts the patterns of material movement through trade, which reflects the inherent structure of the world system regarding copper production and consumption. The results highlight the uneven distribution of global copper stocks and flows across countries in the middle 1990s, and illustrate the core-peripheral structure among different country groups, in which a close interconnected core exist with sparse ties to peripheral groups, and copper are flowing from the peripheral to the core in terms of net flows.
Two geographers residing in Beijing discuss the inflows, processing, and consumption of electroni... more Two geographers residing in Beijing discuss the inflows, processing, and consumption of electronic waste-a topic largely neglected in the current literature on globalization. Based on extensive interviews with electronics producers and recyclers in China from 2002 to 2003, the paper explores the global flows of e-waste and concentration of related recycling in coastal China. The authors suggest that recycling activities (authorized as well as illegal) grew in tandem with the dramatic increase in electronics production during the last decade. They note that the country's recycling sector has played a significant role in rural industrialization and local economic development, albeit in conflict with the objectives of environmental protection. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F20, L63, O17, O19. 6 figures, 22 references.
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