Factors Affecting e-Waste Management: An Interpretive Structural Modeling Approach

In last few years the electronics industry has shown tremendous growth and is recognized as one of the engines of economic development not in India, but also whole world. The last decade has seen tremendous growth in the field of information technology in developed as well as developing countries including India. This growth, combined with rapidly increasing product obsolescence and consumer choices, has brought in a new kind of waste -- electronic waste or e-waste. This ever-increasing waste has very complex characteristics and requires an equally complex set of efficient technology and processes to deal with it. The objective of this paper is to develop the relationships among the identified e-waste management factors. Further, this paper is also helpful to understand mutual influences of factors and to identify those factors which support other factors (driving barrier) and also those factors which are most influenced by other factors (dependent factors). The Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) methodology is used to evolve mutual relationships among these factors.