Research literature on cell phones in particular, rather than electronic products and e-waste in general, emerged around 10 years ago, when they were singled out and targeted by European policy makers [7]. The subsequent industry-initiated research (the so-called Cellular Phones
Take-back Working Group of the European Trade
Organization for the Telecommunication and Professional Electronics Industry (ECTEL) trials) led to a series of publications, which contained energy and cost assessments of the cell phone life cycle, in particular, their end-of-use management [8–10]. Cell phone manufacturers continued these efforts with similar basic assessments of material composition and energy requirements [11–14]. At the same time, the literature on product remanufacturing in management science and industrial engineering discovered cell phones as a case study but was mostly focused on production and operations management issues [15–19]. Guide et al. [20] and Skerlos et al. [21] added economic and/or environmental assessments to their industrial engineering research on cell phone remanufacturing. Similar research on cell phone and computer recycling was published by Bhuie et al. [22] whose largely qualitative environmental assessment focuses on diversion from landfill.