A Grey-DEMATEL approach for implicating e-waste management practice: Modeling in context of Indian scenario

The use of smart electronic gadgets is proportionately increased during last decades as these gadgets are crafting coziness and relief to the society by making their work easier, effective, etc. These gadgets are the need of today’s working environment for effective planning and work execution. Today, people pertaining to almost every corner of the world are addicted to smart mobile phones, and nowadays, these mobile handsets have become very essential and it is not possible to survive without using them. On the other hand, these smart mobile handsets become inefficient and obsolete over time due to which there is a need to replace the old phones by the new ones, thus creating e-waste. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the significant enablers which are responsible for replacing the existing working mobile phones with the new ones by the end consumers.

The Grey-DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) approach is proposed by the authors to compute the decision results. The present work is supported by the structural modeling equations for supporting sustainability throughout and recognizes the most significant enablers responsible for creating e-waste by replacing the working mobile phones with the new ones.

The implication for reducing e-waste using a qualitative approach is presented by easy computation steps for collaborating green issues in the present work. The authors explained numerous enablers, which are responsible for handsets replacement by the consumers. The work can aid the companies as well as the government legislations to identify the significant enablers, drivers, factors, attributes, etc., in moving toward green environmental issue; the generation of e-waste by the obsolete existing working handsets due to non-identification of deficient enablers can be insignificant to the society.

The implication of developed Grey-DEMATEL techniques is presented by its integration with the application field of e-waste generation by mobile handsets. The authors attempt to devise a conceptual framework linked with knowledge-based theory. The work is illustrated by the case research to understand its applicability and validity in the present scenario.

The authors attempt to propose a decision model, which will aid in identifying the most significant factorial condition responsible for replacing the existing mobile phones with the new ones by the end consumers. The proposed appraisement module can be used as an investigative tool to build and fabricate a planned environmental progress map for overall business considering environmental domain by the companies.