Industry 4.0-based AI Imperatives for E-Waste Management in Emerging Economies: A Pathway to Environmental Sustainability

The recent enormous expansion of the electronic industry and the extensive use of digital devices in this Industry 4.0 era have affected e-waste management significantly, particularly for emerging economies. Implementing artificial intelligence (AI) based technologies is imperative to modernize conventional e-waste management systems and guarantee commercial viability and environmental sustainability. Therefore, this study aims to discover, evaluate, and rank the I4.0-based AI-improved for sustainable e-waste management systems. A blended approach consisting of the Delphi and Best-Worst Method (BWM) was combined to satisfy the objectives. Based on the experts' suggestions and extensive literature review, nine I4.0-based AI imperatives were screened out and prioritized using BWM to evaluate their relative importance. The result uncovered that “Sustainability-Centered Product Design to Minimize E-Waste” is the most applicable I4.0-based imperative, followed by “Blockchain and IoT Enabled Intelligent E-Waste Collection and Traceability” for smartly improving the e-waste management system. The insights of this research can be helpful for the industry's top executives, practitioners, and other stakeholders in dealing with e-waste management in an intelligent and long-lasting manner in this Industry 4.0 era.