10 07 29 Master thesis Juliana Leon - e-Waste. This guide

Table 6: Summary of personal and telephone interviews in which this study is based, sorted by
type of stakeholder and city. Interviews were realized by the CNPMLTA team and the author
during 2009 and 2010.
Stakeholder
City
Middlemen/ scrap metal dealers
(with or without dismantling)
Commercial refurbishment,
technical service, supplies seller
Formal e-waste recycling
companies
Bogotá Medellín Cali Barranquilla Bucaramanga Total
7 4 7 14 7 39
9 3 5 7 5 29
7 3 3 3 0 12*
Recicladores 3 2 1 4 3 13
Recyclers cooperatives,
associations, foundations
Municipal solid waste and
transport companies
Other (public institution, auction
organizer, consulting firm)
3 3 4 2 2 14
3 1 3 1 1 9
6 3 2 1 3 13*
Interviews made by the author 6 (15%) 5 (26%) 1 (4%) 0 (0%) 22 (100%) 34 (25%)
* Companies present in more than one city are counted only once.
Approach and questions asked depended on the type of actor. For example, with
middlemen, scrap metal dealers, refurbishers and recicladores the goal was to
understand (a) the functioning of the value chain, (b) who is selling and who is
buying, (c) which processes are being realized for recycling of computer parts or
material, and (d) the treatment or place for disposal of the non valuable parts. In
addition to the mentioned targets, the formal e-waste recyclers were also asked
about quantities, capacities, and details of their technical processes.
2.3 Material Flow Analysis
The Material Flow Analysis (MFA) is a common method to analyse the flow of a
material or good in a defined system. Because of the mass conservation law, the
results of an MFA can be verified by a simple material balance comparing all inputs,
stocks, and outputs of a process. MFA has already been used for the assessment
and modelling of e-waste quantities in developing countries such as Chile (Steubing
et al., 2010), South Africa (Zumbuehl, 2006), and India (Streicher-Porte et al., 2005)
– the last study with a special emphasis on the IS.
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