Dual-channel retail and multichannel recycling strategies considering electronic waste remanufacturing

The recycling channels and price competition of waste products will prompt the upstream and downstream enterprises of the supply chain to take more measures to obtain resource advantages. It is necessary to design a scientific and reasonable recycling and remanufacturing scheme, which is helpful for enterprises to save social resources and improve the recycling efficiency of waste electronic products. This paper constructs a recycling decision model that considers the remanufacturing of waste electronic products and designs a decision plan to promote the recycling of waste electronic products and the retail of remanufactured products. To explore some management implications for firms making those decisions, we develop three analytical game-theoretical models: manufacturer recycling (model M), retailer recycling (model R) and recycling by third-party recyclers (model 3P). Through comparison of the equilibrium results from the three models, we find that the optimal operating decision of manufacturers mainly depends on the recycling rate of waste products, remanufacturing revenue and market demand. Based on numerical examples and sensitivity analysis, we further studied the key factors that affect the selection of the manufacturer’s optimal decision-making scheme. Comparing the three models, we find that when the investment recovery coefficient is high, and the cost savings of remanufacturing are low, the manufacturer will adopt model R; otherwise, the manufacturer will adopt model M. When model 3P is adopted, the impact on the environment is the lowest; and if there is a change in recycling channels, the impact of models M and R on the environment will also change.