Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Survey and analysis of consumers behaviour of waste mobile phone

recycling in China
Jianfeng Yin a, Yingnan Gao b, **, He Xu a, *
a
b

College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, PR China
Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Beijing 100029, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 October 2011
Received in revised form
26 September 2013
Accepted 2 October 2013
Available online xxx

The aim of this paper is to investigate the behaviour of consumers toward waste mobile phone recycling on a
national scale in China. With this goal in mind, a questionnaire survey was performed on a nationwide scale
to explore consumers behaviours, attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for recycling waste mobile phones.
There were 1035 effective questionnaires, and the questionnaire was analysed with principal component
analysis and multinomial logistic regression analysis. The results revealed that the actual service life of
mobile phones in China is generally shorter than three years. Due to the current level of economic development and the traditional concept, only 47.9% of consumers agreed to pay for waste mobile phone recycling,
and most consumers WTP was 0e5% of the recycling costs. The main factors affecting the consumers WTP
were region, education level and monthly income. Therefore, mobile phone producers and the government
should mostly share the responsibility of waste mobile phone recycling. With an improvement in public
environmental awareness, it may be possible for consumers to afford recycling fees in the future, through
either a prepaid deposit, or purchasing the product with the fee embedded in the price. In addition, it is
important to support environmental education to promote environmental awareness.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Waste mobile phone
Questionnaire
Recycling
EPR
Management

1. Introduction
With the rapid economic development and the continuous
improvement of peoples living standards, the electronic communications industry has experienced a trend of rapid growth in China. As
of 2004, China became the largest producer and consumer of mobile
phones in the world (MIIT, 2005). The production of mobile phones
has reached 1.13 billion units, accounting for 70.6% of the global
production. In 2011, there were 986.25 million users, which brought
the popularising rate reach to 73.6% in China (ITU, 2011; MIIT, 2012).
Moreover, the service life of mobile phones in China is generally less
than three years and is even close to one year in a portion of cases,
due to the pursuit of fashion and the desire to acquire new mobile
phone functions (Ha et al., 2010; Ongondo and Williams, 2011; Polk
and Drpalov, 2012). There are approximately 70 million waste
mobile phones being generated every year in China (Yu et al., 2010;

* Corresponding author. 407, Meng Minwei Building, College of Environmental

Science and Engineering, Nankai University, 94 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin
300071, PR China. Tel./fax: 86 22 23508348.
** Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: gaomei0922@163.com (Y. Gao), seacenter@nankai.edu.cn
(H. Xu).

Wang et al., 2011). It is estimated that by 2020, the annual amount

of discarded mobile phones will be approximately seven times
greater than the amount in 2007 (UNEP, 2009). Compared to traditional municipal wastes, obsolete mobile phones contain both highly
toxic substances and valuable materials that can be recovered, such
as copper, silver, gold and palladium. Therefore, recycling of waste
mobile phones is required to garner the double value of both environmental protection and resource conservation. In China, however,
there is still a shortage of appropriate management policies and
collection systems on waste mobile phones, and recycling treatment
infrastructures still need to be developed (Li et al., 2012; Polk and
Drpalov, 2012; Song et al., 2012; Yu et al., 2010).
There is a large amount of legislation (e.g., the Basel Convention)
concerning e-waste, including waste mobile phone legislation
enacted to control waste electrical and electronic equipment
(WEEE) around the world (www.basel.int). Since the European
Union (EU) has implemented the restriction on hazardous substances (RoHS-Directive, 2002/95/EC) and waste electrical and
electronic equipment (WEEE-Directive, 2002/96/EC), many countries have paid considerable attention to WEEE management.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR), one of the most potent
principles incorporated into e-waste management, states that
producers and importers should extend their responsibility to
reclaim e-scrap (Afroz et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2011).

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Please cite this article in press as: Yin, J., et al., Survey and analysis of consumers behaviour of waste mobile phone recycling in China, Journal of
Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.10.006

J. Yin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

However, beyond the responsibility of producers and importers,

the government and mobile phone customers also play important
roles in e-waste recycling (Hicks et al., 2005; Nnorom et al., 2009).
There have been many scientic studies focussing on successful ewaste management and collection systems (Dwivedy and Mittal,
2012; Dindarian et al., 2012; Oliveira et al., 2012; Torretta et al.,
2013). Research has also been conducted on the behaviour of customers regarding e-waste recycling or willingness to pay for ewaste recycling in foreign countries (Afroz et al., 2013; Dwivedy
and Mittal, 2013; Darby and Obara, 2005; Saphores et al., 2012),
of which some studies have focused on used and end-of-life mobile
phones (Jang and Kim, 2010; Nnorom et al., 2009; Ongondo and
Williams, 2011; Polk and Drpalov, 2012).
As an important stakeholder of waste mobile phone recycling
and treatment, the socioeconomic characteristics of consumers,
such as gender, age, income and education level, play important
roles in the behaviour or willingness of the general public
(Saphores et al., 2012; Song et al., 2012; Yoo and Kwak, 2009).
Previous studies based on a questionnaire survey in China have
examined residents behaviours, attitudes and their willingness to
pay for e-waste recycling in developed regions, such as Beijing
(Wang et al., 2011), Macau (Song et al., 2012) and the medium-sized
city of Taizhou (Streicher-Porte and Geering, 2010). Nevertheless,
the characteristics are different from large WEEE to small e-waste,
with mobile phones serving as a typical example. As small WEEE,
mobile phones have a minor share of WEEE by weight, various
material compositions, defective reuse and recycling systems.
However, mobile phones are the vast majority by number and their
environmental and health impacts would not be negligible
(Chancerel and Rotter, 2009; Darby and Obara, 2005; Polk and
Drpalov, 2012; Xu, 2011). Most recently, China has been undergoing rapid urbanisation and faces both developing and developed
country problems, due to the wide geographical area and high
heterogeneity among population groups in China. Therefore, how
to collect waste mobile phones effectively and efciently, especially
on a national scale, is still a primary challenge for the Chinese
government (Qu et al., 2013).

In our study, we rst introduced a review of the e-waste policy

and practice situation in China, and then we analysed the questionnaire survey on a national scale. Based on our detailed analysis,
we provide several positive suggestions for methods of waste
mobile phone collection in the future. In addition, we encourage
policy makers to develop more effective management policies for
small WEEE disposal in China, as well as in other developing and
developed countries.
2. Management of waste mobile phones in China
2.1. Laws and regulations on waste mobile phone recycling in China
As the largest manufacturer and consumer of electronic appliances, the Chinese government has made efforts to tackle problems
associated with the recycling and disposal of waste electrical and
electronic equipment since 2001. The driving forces behind these
efforts come from both home and abroad. The regulations on
electronic products and e-waste recycling management systems in
other countries/regions (especially in the EU and its member
countries) have placed substantial pressure on the electronic
products export industry in China. Meanwhile, the amount of WEEE
is approaching a peak Chinese domestic e-waste stockpile (Liu
et al., 2006). There are three main government agencies regulating WEEE management in China (Yang et al., 2008): the Ministry
of Environmental Protection (MEP), the National Development and
Reform Commission (NDRC), and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). In addition, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the Ministry of
Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD), and the State
Administration for Industry & Commerce (SAIC) are also involved in
the management of e-waste.
In response to the e-waste problem, China recently enacted a
number of specic laws on WEEE. There are three basic laws on ewaste in China: the Cleaner Production Promotion Law, the Solid
Waste Pollution Prevention Law (Amendment), and the Circular
Economy Promotion Law. Based on those laws, the agencies

Table 1
Relevant laws and regulations of electronic wastes in China.
Laws and regulations

Major contents

Relationship of the regulations

Implementation time

Technology Policy of Hazardous Waste Pollution

Control

Stipulate the activities technologies and facilities of

collection, transport, storage, recycling and disposal
of hazardous waste, including e-waste
Regulate the activities of production, collection,
transport, storage, recycling and disposal of battery
Blanket legislation on prevention and reduction of
pollution caused by solid waste
Establish the principles of 3R and polluter pays
principle, encourage building multivariate
recycling system of e-waste
Chinese RoHS

Administrative rule

2001.12.17

Administrative rule

2003.10.09

Law

2005.04.01

Administrative rule

2006.04.27

Administrative rule

2007.03 0.01

Stipulate rules of renewable resources recycling

system
Regulate the activities of production, disassembly,
recycling, disposal and storage of e-waste
Regulate the requirements for the disassembly and
treatment of e-waste, excluding e-wastes collection
Stipulate the process of collection, transportation,
storage, dismantling, reuse and disposal of e-waste

Administrative rule

2007.05 0.01

Administrative rule

2008.02.01

Law

2009.01.01

Technical standard

2010.04.01

Chinese WEEE directive

Decree

2011.01.01

Establish special fund from producer and importer

to nance e-waste recycling and disposal
Establish some principals about the design and
production of EEE, and disposal of e-wastes

Administrative rule

2012.05.21

Law

2012.07.01

Technology Policy of Waste Battery Pollution

Prevention
Solid Waste Pollution Prevention Law
(Amendment)
Technology Policy of Discarded Household
Appliances and Electronic Products Pollution
Control
Management Measures of Pollution Prevention for
Electronic Information Products
Management Measures of Renewable Resources
Recycling
Regulations of Electronic Waste Pollution
Prevention
Circular Economy Promotion Law
Technology Specications of Pollution Control for
Processing Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment
Management Ordinance of Recycling and Treatment
of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products
Administrative Measures of Fund for Waste
Electrical and Electronic Products
Cleaner Production Promotion Law (Amendment)

Please cite this article in press as: Yin, J., et al., Survey and analysis of consumers behaviour of waste mobile phone recycling in China, Journal of
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J. Yin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

2.2. Practice of waste mobile phone recycling in China

mentioned above have enacted 12 laws and regulations to manage

recycling and treatment of e-wastes including waste mobile phones
(Table 1), such as the Management Measures of Pollution Prevention for Electronic Information Products (Chinese RoHS, Mar. 1,
2007), the Management Ordinance of Recycling and Treatment of
Waste Electrical and Electronic Products (Chinese WEEE directive,
Jan. 1, 2011). These laws, regulations and policies have laid a solid
legal foundation for the healthy development of the electronic
waste recycling industry in China (Chung and Zhang, 2011; Chen
et al., 2009).
However, there are still many difculties regarding waste mobile phone management in China, and a special legal framework on
small WEEE aiming to encourage stakeholders to participate in
waste mobile phones recycling does not exist, particularly
regarding integration of informal peddlers and private workshops
into the formal recycling system. Regarding waste mobile phone
management, China is lagging behind the European Union and
Japan (Qu et al., 2013; Queiruga et al., 2012; Zhou and Xu, 2012).

To recycle waste mobile phones, there have been a myriad of

voluntary recycling activities in Chinese communities, campuses
and cities, initiated by manufacturers, mobile telecom carriers or
sellers. The Green Box Environmental Program and the Green
Card Recycling Activity are two examples of waste mobile phones
recycling activities that have occurred in China (Zhou and Xu,
2012).
The Green Box Environmental Program launched in 2005 and
was co-sponsored by China Mobile, Motorola and Nokia. Green
Boxes, exclusively used for recycling waste mobile phones and their
accessories free of charge, were placed in 1000 business halls of
China Mobile, 150 mobile phone sales centres, and service centres
of Motorola and Nokia in 40 major cities. Six companies joined the
program in Apr. 2006, including LG, Lenovo, Chinabird, AMOI, NEC
and Panasonic. It was estimated that until September 2007, there
was a total recovery of nearly 2.6 million discarded mobile phone

Table 2
Questionnaire.
Basic information
City:

Age:

Sex:

Monthly income:

Education level:

Part One Treatment way

Q1-1 How long is the average service life of your phone?
Q1-2 What is the reason for replacing your mobile phone?
Q1-3 How do you treat your waste mobile phone?

Q1-4 Why do you not participate in waste mobile phones recycling?

Q1-5 What is the reason for the low recycling rate?

Q1-6 What is your preference patterns of waste mobile phones recycling?

,1 year
,2 years
,3 years
,4 years
,5 years
,more than 5 years
,Outdated style
,Outdated function
,Damage
,Others
,Stored at home
,Thrown away as ordinary garbage
,Recycled by Green Box Program
,Recycled by Old-for-New activity
,Sold to the peddler and second-hand market
,Would rather give the phone to families or friends than recycle it at a low price
,Do not know where to send the phone
,Mobile phone can be used as data storage equipment
,Being afraid of disclosure of privacy
,Absence of a sound recycling system
,Weak environmental awareness
,Absence of government regulation
,Absence of laws and regulations
,Old-for-New activity
,Door-to-door collecting service
,Collecting sites in community built by government
,Business hall of mobile telecom carrier
,Service centre and maintenance centre

Part Two Consumers environmental awareness

Q2-1 Do you know the Green Box Environmental Protection Program proposed jointly
by China Mobile, Motorola and Nokia in 2005?
Q2-2 Do you know that waste mobile phones contain toxic and hazardous substances,
such as lead, mercury, or arsenic?
Q2-3 Do you know that waste mobile phones contain recyclable precious metal substance,
like gold, silver, or palladium?
Q2-4 Do you know EPR stipulated in electric waste management laws?
Q2-5 Do you know the meaning of Extended Producer Responsibility?

,Have no
,Know
,Have no
,Know
,Have no
,Know
,Have no
,Know
,Have no
,Know

idea
idea
idea
idea
idea

,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing
,Knowing

very little
quite well
very little
quite well
very little
quite well
very little
quite well
very little
quite well

,Very familiar
,Very familiar
,Very familiar
,Very familiar
,Very familiar

Part Three Willingness to pay

Q3-1 Which department do you think should
take the responsibility of waste mobile phones recycling?
Q3-2 Do you agree that consumers are the ultimate
beneciaries of product and service, and should they
afford a part of charge for the recycling of their waste mobile phones?

Q3-3 If consumers have to pay part of the waste mobile

phone recycling costs, what percentage of recycling costs can you accept?

,Government
,Manufacturer
,Seller
,Consumer
,Communication operator
,Common responsibility
,Disagree
,Agreement, Payment Pattern: Deposit system
,Agreement, Payment Pattern: paying when purchasing the product with
the payment embedded in the product price
,Agreement, Payment Pattern: paying when the product is asked for disposal
,Others
,0e5%
,6e10%
,11e15%
,16e20%
,21e25%
,more than 26%

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J. Yin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

and accessory units. However, the recycling rate was very low in
comparison to the amount of waste mobile phones (Wang et al.,
2011) due to the voluntary nature of this program. Thus, there is
no guarantee that consumers will participate in the program,
particularly because they can obtain a bonus by selling their
obsolete cell phones (Kunming, 2011).
The Green Card Recycling Activity for mobile phone batteries
was initiated in 2006 by Suning, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony
Ericsson and Lenovo. This program specically recycled waste
mobile phone batteries. All of the recycled waste phone batteries
were sound treated by professional treatment companies that were
commissioned by Suning, China mobile and individual consumers;
however, the activity was only a short-term voluntary initiative that
lasted one month (SOHU, 2006). Accordingly, the positive effect of
the activity was very limited.
From Jun. 1, 2009 to Dec. 31, 2011, the Chinese government had
proposed an Old-for-New Activity, and sales enterprises, such as
Gome and Suning, were involved in the recycling activity. However,
waste mobile phones were not yet included in the related Old-forNew Catalog (including TV sets, refrigerators, washing machines,
air conditioners and computers). In general, China has not set up a
practical waste mobile phone recycling system because of the lag in
laws and technology and the very low recycling rate. In addition,
most recycling and treatment activities mainly driven by economic
benets were ineffective (Qu et al., 2013; Xing and Lu, 2008).
3. Methodology
3.1. Questionnaire design
Before the nal data gathering, 200 questionnaires were
distributed to consumers through a pilot survey carried out in
Tianjin and Shanxi from Dec. 17, 2010 to Dec. 27, 2010. Based on the
feedback, a revised survey was conducted from Feb. 20, 2011 to
Mar. 15, 2011. The survey contained questions on basic socioeconomic information and three other parts. The socioeconomic information included questions regarding sex, age, city, education
level, and monthly income. The rst of the three additional survey
parts uncovered consumers behaviours and attitudes on recycling
and treatment of waste mobile phones. The second part aimed to
investigate the consumers environmental awareness of waste
mobile phones recycling and treatment. The third part surveyed the
consumers willingness to pay for recycling and treatment of waste
mobile phones and factors inuencing their willingness (see
Table 2).
3.2. Sampling methods
The purpose of this paper was to investigate the behaviours,
attitudes and willingness of customers to participate in waste
mobile phones recycling on a national scale. This paper adopted the
stratied random sampling method to carry out the survey due to
the tremendous differences and high heterogeneity among population groups.
Consumers recycling behaviour was directly related to the level
of the regions economic development, so this paper used the per
capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the basis for the stratied
random sampling. According to preliminary calculations from 2010
(NBSC, 2011), Chinas GDP had reached 39.7983 trillion Yuan
(Renminbi, RMB), and the per capita GDP was 29,678 RMB. The per
capita GDP of Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin, the three municipalities directly governed by the Central government, had exceeded
60,000 RMB and reached or approached the per capita level of the
moderately developed countries (Sina, 2011). However, the per
capita GDP of some provinces, such as Yunnan, Gansu, Guizhou,

Table 3
Region division of the Questionnaire.
Region

GDP per capita (RMB)

Provinces and cities

A
B

Above 5000
3000e5000

2000e3000

1000e2000

Bejing, Shanghai, Tianjin

Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Inner
Mongolia, Shangdong, Liaoning, Fujian
Jilin, Hebei, Hubei, Heilongjiang, Henan,
Shanxi, Shaanxi, Chongqing
Hainan, Qinghai, Sichuan, Anhui,
Guangxi, Jiangxi, Tibet, Gansu, Guizhou,
Yunnan, Ningxia, Hunan

were less than 15,000 RMB. Consequently, the paper divided the
entire country into four sub-regions: A, B, C, and D with the per
capita GDP as the criteria (see Table 3). And no less than 1000
questionnaires were distributed in the 4 regions (Table 4).
There were some difculties in distributing questionnaires due
to the wide geographical area. Therefore, this paper adopted two
distribution channels for the survey, including an on-site method
and an on-line, web-site method.1 Both methods had advantages
and disadvantages. The respondents interviewed using the on-site
method had strong randomness and high representativeness, but
this method needed a higher level of manpower and material resources. Although the on-line, web-site method was more convenient and less resource intensive, the respondents were limited to
netizens, which were poor in representativeness. To make full use
of the advantages of these two methods and to enhance the
representativeness and accuracy of the data, this paper adopted
both survey methods.
3.3. Modelling methods
3.3.1. Stratied random sampling
In sample surveys, we often divide a population into a nite
number of disjointed subpopulations, namely, strata (Hu et al.,
2008). Assuming that a nite population with N elements is
divided into k strata, and the ith stratum possesses Ni elements,

k
X

Ni

(1)

i1

If ni elements were taken from stratum i in compliance with the

principle of random sample,

k
X

ni ;

(2)

i1

where: i 1,2,.,k.
3.3.2. Likert-type scale
The Likert-type scale is the most common research method for
surveying opinions and attitudes in the social and business sciences. Respondents are asked to respond to indicate their level of
agreement with a declarative statement. For a ve-point method,
each scale point could be labelled in accordance with its agreement
level as follows: A strongly disagree, B disagree, C neither
disagree nor agree, D agree, and F strongly agree. Based on
what is being measured, the scale labels could be worded differently (Li, 2013; Ryan and Garland, 1999). In part two of the study,
the attitude, belief, knowledge or experience of the respondent was

1
The web-site for the questionnaire: http://taidu8.com/sr/faces/welcome.jsp?
surveyId394C967144A111E085A52679EA2A13E0

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browse the web site of the questionnaire. The demographic

composition of the sample is presented in Table 5.

Table 4
Distribution of the sample.
District

Total

The number of issued

questionnaires
The number of returned
questionnaires
The response rate
The number of effective
questionnaires
The availability rate

285

255

280

280

1100

5. Discussion

279

241

271

273

1064

5.1. Consumers recycling behaviour

98.0%
273

94.5%
227

96.8%
264

97.5%
270

96.7%
1035

95.8%

89.0%

94.3%

96.4%

94.1%

5.1.1. Average service life of mobile phones in China

With the rapid development of the economy and the electronic
communications industry, most consumers upgrade their phones
due to fashion obsolescence and the desire for new mobile phone
functions, meaning that the potential life span of a mobile phone is
relatively short. According to the data from the questionnaires, the
service life of mobile phones is generally less than 3 years (Fig. 1),
which is shorter than the designed service life.
The major reasons that most consumers replaced their mobile
phones were that their mobile phones were damaged (43.8%), or
the functions and styles were unfashionable (37.1%). The short
service life would lead to a large number of waste mobile phones,
which could be potentially hazardous to the environment. Meanwhile, more and more energy and resources would be utilised to
manufacture new mobile phones. Accordingly, consumers should
extend the service life of their mobile phones to preserve energy
and resources.

measured with suitable labels such as Have no idea e very

familiar, with value assignments such that option (A) is 1, option
(B) is 2.and option (E) is 5. The reliability and construct validity
were analysed by the T-Test and Principal Component Analysis of
the SPSS software, respectively.
4. Results
Considering several unavailable questionnaires via in-person
questionnaires, we distributed 1100 questionnaires in the 4 regions through an on-site and on-line, web-site method, to ensure
the sample size. The total number of returned questionnaires was
1064, and the number of effective questionnaires was 1035. The
response rate was 96.7%, and the availability rate was 94.1% (see
Table 4). The likely reasons behind the high response rate and
effective questionnaire are as follows: (1) For the on-site method,
we gave gifts to consumers to attract them; and (2) For the online, web-site method, consumers could easily answer the
questionnaires by marking their options with a mouse, and
clicking the submit button when they nished. If consumers did
not nish the questionnaires, the submit button would not be
activated.
There was a bias in the sample toward male (53.9%), 21e30 years
old (41.2%), and junior college and bachelor (55.3%) respondents,
either because these people were more interested in completing
the questionnaires, or because these people had more time to

Table 5
Demographic composition of the sample.
N (number)
Sex
Male
Female
Age
10e20
21e30
31e40
41e50 and above
Monthly income (RMB)
0
1e2000
2001e3000
3001e5000
5001e8000
8001e15,000
Education level
Senior High School and Below
Junior College and Bachelor
Master and Above
Region
A
B
C
D
Total

558
477

53.9%
46.1%

153
426
291
165

14.8%
41.2%
28.1%
15.9%

345
228
198
189
54
21

33.3%
22.0%
19.1%
18.3%
5.2%
2.0%

193
572
270

18.6%
55.3%
26.1%

273
227
264
270
1035

26.4%
22.0%
25.5%
26.1%
100%

5.1.2. Consumers mobile phone treatment methods

Through this investigation, it was concluded that 24.8% of the
mobile phones had been given to others or lost (or been stolen).
These phones were reused by consumers, which could extend the
lifespan of mobile phones. Approximately 47.1% of waste mobile
phones were stored at home. The material ow of waste mobile
phones is shown in Fig. 2.
Only 28.1% of waste mobile phones were recycled in various
ways, with 6.5% being recycled through the Green Box Program.
The other 2.3% were recycled through the Old-for-New activity,
but there was no uniform subsidised price of the Old-for-New
activity. In addition, 12.4% of waste mobile phones were sold to
peddlers or disordered second-hand markets, most of which could
not be disposed of in a reasonable way although some phones
would eventually be recycled. The peddlers and disordered secondhand markets would dismantle valuable components, sell the
phones in rural areas after reassembly or refurbishment, and then
throw the remains into the surrounding environment (Qu et al.,
2013). Most of the unavailable phones were sold to private workshops for dismantlement using out-dated technologies, such as acid
baths or open incineration, which would cause serious secondary
pollution. Additionally, approximately 6.8% of waste phones were
thrown away as ordinary garbage. All of these waste mobile phones
could be potentially hazardous to the environment and the
manufacture of new phones would waste energy and resources.
5.1.3. Factors hindering the behaviour of customers in e-waste
recycling
From the questionnaire, the main reasons listed for why many
waste mobile phones were not recycled were that most consumers
did not know where to send the phones (45.9%), or that they would
rather give their phones to families or friends than recycle it for a
small fee (28.3%). Moreover, some consumers were afraid of privacy
disclosure (17.7%), and a few consumers used waste mobile phones
purely as data storage equipment (8.1%).
5.1.4. Consumers attitude towards the low recycling rate
The survey revealed that the recycling rate of waste mobile
phones is notably low in China. Asked what causes the low rate,
33.4% of consumers indicated that the main reason was the absence

Please cite this article in press as: Yin, J., et al., Survey and analysis of consumers behaviour of waste mobile phone recycling in China, Journal of
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J. Yin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

Fig. 1. The average service life of mobile phones.

of a sound recycling system. Approximately 23.8%, 15.7%, and 15.2%

believed the prime element behind the low rate was weak environmental awareness, the absence of government management,
and the absence of laws and regulations, respectively. In addition, a
few consumers expressed that there was an inadequate level of
publicity on the necessity of waste mobile phone recycling.
Hence, we should build a reasonable recycling system to
improve the recycling rate. In addition, we also need to strengthen
publicity through various means to raise environmental protection
awareness among the general public.
5.1.5. Consumers preference patterns of waste mobile phone
recycling
To improve the recycling rate in China, it is very important to
establish a reasonable and acceptable recycling system. The
investigation of consumers preference patterns of waste mobile

phone recycling indicated that 28.5% of consumers are willing to

send their phones to sellers through the Old-for-New activity,
while a portion of consumers prefer to receive a bonus by selling
their waste phones. Many consumers hoped that the government
would establish collecting sites in communities (25.0%), or that
their phones could be collected in business halls of mobile telecom
carriers (24.7%). The possible reason for this preference by consumers is that the collecting sites or business halls are widely
distributed and close to communities, providing a more convenient
recycling location for consumers. However, the choice of door-todoor collecting service was low (11.1%), due to fears of privacy
disclosure. In addition, only 10.6% of consumers choices were the
service centres and maintenance centres because the centres were
too concentrated and far away from communities. Based on the
laws and regulations encouraging WEEE to be recycled through a
variety of ways, the Old-for-New activity should be standardised

Fig. 2. Material ow of waste mobile phones.

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J. Yin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

as soon as possible, and the Green Box Program should be given

more publicity. Meanwhile, the government should build collecting
sites in communities. Consequently, waste mobile phones could be
recycled effectively through these three main methods.
5.2. Consumers recovery consciousness
The results of an independent sample analysis using SPSS
revealed that the second part of the questionnaire has high reliability and discrimination, and good construct validity. The mean
values of the ve questions in this section were, respectively
calculated (Table 6). The questionnaire results revealed that consumers have the highest level of understanding regarding the toxic,
hazardous substances and precious metal substances contained in
mobile phones. However, a substantial number of consumers were
not aware of the Green Box Environmental Protection Program
and the principle of EPR. In contrast, consumers were more familiar
with the common knowledge of mobile phone components. In
general, consumers were less knowledgeable about e-waste recycling. Accordingly, the government should provide more information on a short-term time scale to promote residents general
understanding about e-waste, especially information about the
laws, policies and recycling systems. Furthermore, the fundamental
method to improve customers recovery consciousness is to increase the education level of the overall population (Song et al.,
2012).
5.3. Consumers WTP
Relevant laws proposed the theory of EPR in relation to the issue
of payment methods of WEEE recycling. One important aspect of
EPR is the concept of shared responsibility. The key element of EPR
includes multi-stakeholder collaboration and coordination (Zhang
and Wei, 2008). The Management Ordinance of Recycling and
Treatment of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products, implemented on Jan. 1, 2011, determined that the government should
allocate special funds to support the recycling and treatment of
waste electrical and electronic products; furthermore, the producers and importers have obligations to pay the recycling fees.
However, there were no nancial responsibility requirements on
sellers and consumers. Based on the experiences of developed
countries, a complete and stable waste mobile phone recycling
system requires collaboration of stakeholders, including the government, producers, sellers, mobile telecom carriers and consumers. However, based on the questionnaire, many consumers did
not think they should be held responsible for the take-back fees
because of the tradition that in China they can obtain a bonus by
selling their obsolete cell phones instead of paying recycling fees
for waste mobile phone recycling. Furthermore, only 6.1% of consumers thought that the ve stakeholders mentioned above should
participate jointly.
5.3.1. WTP
According to the beneciary pays principle, as the ultimate
beneciaries of production and services, consumers should be
responsible for a part of the charge for waste mobile phone recycling and treatment. However, 52.1% of the consumers from the
questionnaire did not accept this view due to the current level of

Table 6
Mean value of the ve questions.
Question

Q2-1

Q2-2

Q2-3

Q2-4

Q2-5

Mean value

1.46

2.96

2.45

1.78

1.90

economic development and the traditional concept of waste responsibility. Another 47.9% of consumers agreed to pay the costs of
recycling and treatment; however, the consumers had different
opinions regarding the payment method. Approximately 20.3%
wanted to pay deposits at the time of purchase, deducting costs
from the deposits and returning the remaining part when handing
in their e-waste products, and 15.7% believed recycling costs should
be embedding in the price of the product. The remaining 11.9% of
consumers were more inclined to pay the costs to the recyclers as
part of the actual e-waste collection.
In this case, consumers exhibited low WTP. About 65.2% of
consumers WTP was 0e5% of recycling costs, and 19.1% of consumers WTP was 6e10%. Only a small number of consumers would
accept higher take-back fees.
5.3.2. Inuencing factors of WTP
This study determined the inuencing factors of WTP with a
multinomial logistic regression analysis in SPSS. WTP was set as the
dependent variable, and region, education level, and monthly income were set to be inuencing factors. The signicant values of
the Chi-square test are all smaller than 0.01 (Table 7). Therefore,
these 3 WTP factors were signicant.
This study also indicated the relationships between WTP and
the 3 factors (Tables 8e10). The average values in the 3 tables
revealed that the number of consumers decreases as the WTP increases. Moreover, when WTP was higher than 15%, the number of
consumers in regions A, B, C, D was only 7.7%, 6.5%, 5.6%, and 4.4%,
respectively. This implied that the consumers from developed areas
were willing to pay more for waste mobile phone recycling. When
WTP was lower than 5%, the percentages of the number of consumers were similar in the 4 regions, and the level of economic
development had no signicant impact on WTP. Therefore, it could
be inferred that a payment of 5% of the recycling cost is accepted
nationwide.
WTP of consumers with different monthly incomes are shown
in Table 9. When WTP was higher than 15%, consumers with highincome levels were still likely to participate in recycling programs
in each WTP level (5.50% > 4.70%; 1.50% > 0.57%; 0.70% > 0.33%).
When WTP was lower than 5%, there were no signicant differences regardless of whether the customers monthly incomes were
above or below 3000 RMB. Consequently, consumers would likely
accept 5% of the recycling cost.
Table 10 indicates the WTP of consumers with different education levels. When WTP was lower than 10%, there was no obvious
distinction between more-educated and relatively less-educated
customers regarding e-waste recycling behaviour. However, when
WTP was higher than 10%, 17.5% of consumers with a masters
degree or above could accept this rate, 17.2% of the consumers in
Junior colleges and universities could accept it, and only 14.1% of
the consumers in senior high school or below could accept it.
Perhaps the reason behind these differences is that consumers with
a higher education level are very knowledgeable and have a greater
environmental awareness.
Through the above analysis, it was concluded that monthly income and education level have a positive relationship with the

Table 7
Likelihood ratio of test results.
Effect

2 Log likelihood of
reduced model

Chi-square

df

Sig.

Intercept
Region
Education level
Monthly income

757.272
842.449
828.672
878.285

0.000
85.178
71.400
121.013

0
15
20
25

0.000
0.000
0.000

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J. Yin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

Table 8
Different willingness to pay of the 4 regions.
Region

0e5%

6e10%

11e15%

16e20%

21e25%

More than 25%

A
B
C
D
Average

65.50%
65.70%
64.80%
65.60%
65.40%

20.20%
23.70%
25.00%
17.80%
21.70%

6.60%
3.90%
4.50%
12.20%
6.80%

5.50%
3.90%
3.40%
3.30%
4.03%

2.20%
0.00%
1.10%
1.10%
1.10%

0.00%
2.60%
1.10%
0.00%
0.90%

Table 9
WTP of different monthly incomes.
Monthly income 0e5%

6e10% 11e15% 16e20% 21e25% More than 25%

0
1e2000
2001e3000
Average

55.70%
79.00%
74.10%
69.60%

29.60%
11.80%
18.20%
19.87%

7.00%
2.60%
5.20%
8.27%

6.10%
6.50%
1.50%
4.70%

1.70%
0.00%
0.00%
0.57%

0.00%
0.00%
1.00%
0.33%

3001e5000
5001e8000
8001e15,000
Average

71.40%
66.70%
85.70%
69.4%

11.10%
16.70%
14.30%
17.0%

4.80%
5.60%
0.00%
5.90%

9.50%
5.60%
0.00%
5.50%

1.60%
5.60%
0.00%
1.50%

1.60%
0.00%
0.00%
0.70%

(4) Consumers level of environmental awareness was low due

to the absence of environmental publicity and education in
China.
(5) It is very important to establish a reasonable and acceptable
recycling system to improve the recycling rate. The Old-forNew activity, the Green Box Program and collection sites
in communities were more popular with consumers in the
questionnaire.
(6) The level of consumers environmental awareness was low,
especially regarding relevant knowledge of laws, policies and
systems. Most consumers WTP was 0e5% of recycling costs,
and the factors affecting the WTP were region, education
level and monthly income. Consumers with high-income
levels, higher education levels, and residing in developed
areas were more likely to pay for recycling.

7. Recommendations and further research

willingness of customers in waste mobile phone recycling. Most

consumers could afford 5% of the recycling costs, so it was necessary to regulate consumers economic responsibility based on the
survey.
6. Conclusions
According to the analysis of the questionnaire, the following
conclusions are proposed:
(1) Although the Chinese government has enacted 12 laws and
regulations to manage the recycling and treatment of ewaste, a special legal framework on small WEEE aiming to
encourage stakeholders to participate in waste mobile
phones recycling is still necessary to be developed. All of the
current recycling activities in China are voluntary initiatives,
and there is no guarantee that consumers will participate in
the formal program because they can obtain a bonus by
selling their obsolete cell phones.
(2) This study indicated that in China, the actual service life of
mobile phones is generally less than 3 years, which is shorter
than the designed service life because of consumers unceasing demand for new functions and styles. This leads to a
large quantity of waste mobile phones.
(3) There were 6 main ways that consumers could address their
waste mobile phones. About 47.1% of the consumers mobile
phones were stored at home, and most of the waste mobile
phones could not be recycled effectively, meaning that this
waste could be potentially hazardous to the environment
and that the manufacture of new phones would waste energy and resources.

Table 10
Different willingness to pay of different education level.
Education level

0e5%

6e10%

11e15%

16e20%

21e25%

More
than 25%

Senior High School

and Below
Junior College
and Bachelor
Master and Above
Average

70.3%

15.6%

7.8%

6.3%

0.0%

0.0%

64.6%

21.8%

5.9%

6.1%

4.0%

1.2%

67.3%
66.4%

19.3%
18.9%

9.3%
7.7%

2.7%
6.0%

4.1%
2.7%

1.4%
0.9%

EPR was an important theory for determining the responsibilities regarding e-waste recycling. However, this theory
does not mean that only manufacturers should take charge of the ewaste recycling fee. The collaboration and coordination of multistakeholders is also a key component of EPR. Therefore, the government, manufacturers, sellers, mobile telecom carriers, professional recovery operators and consumers should all participate in
waste mobile phone recycling. As a government-dominating society, the Chinese government should rst formulate specialised laws
and a complete reasonable management system on small WEEE.
Another important element is to encourage other stakeholders to
participate in waste mobile phone recycling, especially integration
of informal peddlers and private workshops into formal recycling
system through laws and economic incentives instead of simply
prohibiting these informal sectors (Qu et al., 2013). However,
considering the consumers traditions and the low WTP in China,
producers and the government should mostly share the responsibility of waste mobile phone recycling.
In addition, it is important to support environmental education
to promote environmental awareness; environmental education
plays a major role in improving childrens future environmental
behavioural practices. Meanwhile, environmental publicity activities for the general public, at least for a short period of time, should
continue to be organised regularly in communities, enterprises,
government agencies and universities. Measures for recycling could
be effectively conducted only when consumers are fully knowledgeable about e-waste (e.g., its harm, relevant management policies and recycling system) (Afroz et al., 2013; Song et al., 2012; Yoo
and Kwak, 2009). With the improvement of public environmental
awareness, it may be possible in the future for consumers to afford
some recycling fee either through a prepaid deposit or when purchasing the product with the fee embedded in the price.
Moreover, we should extend the service life of mobile phones
through three methods. First, manufacturers should extend the
designed service life of mobile phones with new technologies,
especially regarding the battery life. Second, consumers could
extend the actual service life of mobile phones through reduction of
their upgrading frequency, or through donation of unused phones
to others. Finally, the administrative departments should reorganise and standardise the secondary market, requiring second-hand
labels for second-hand phones.
This paper rst performed a questionnaire survey to analyse
consumers behaviours, attitudes, and their WTP for recycling outdated mobile phones on a national scale. Due to limited resources
such as time, money and manpower, the respondents are anonymous through two distribution channels (i.e., an on-site and an on-

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J. Yin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e9

line, web-site method). The advantages and disadvantages of each

survey method exist simultaneously. The utilisation of both
methods enabled a representative sample, but the data quality was
not high. For future research, we should aim to use face-to-face
interviews with well-trained interviewers to investigate the willingness of different groups in different regions, and these surveys
would be valuable because they can provide most complete,
comprehensive and meaningful high-quality data.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous survey takers for
participating in this questionnaire.
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