Consumer Behavior Toward End of Useful Life Smartphones

The generation of e-waste as a result of technological advancements and increased smartphone use has led to significant environmental issues. However, the return rate of EoL smartphones, which is heavily impacted by consumers, is crucial to the effectiveness of RSC systems, ability for smartphones. Given the fact that consumers affect the design of RSC systems, the present study aims to examining how consumers replace and utilize their end of useful life smartphones. The empirical survey involving 341 participants in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, was conducted. The findings showed that the most motivation to replace smartphones was due to non-functionality (87.98%), followed by the decrease in smartphones price (10.56%). Monthly income appears to be influential toward smartphone replacement behavior. With respect to after-use behavior, 53.37% of the respondents keep their end of useful life smartphones, and only 8.21% of the respondents hand them over to the recycling center. It appears that more EoL smartphone collection centers, information on the collection centers, and financial incentives are required to establish and facilitate operation of the RSC system. Potential future research is also discussed.