The cost data in Table 1 shows a fair degree of consistency across time and geography. The individual reverse logistics costs obviously very much depend on the business model and operations of the collecting agent.
Agents that focus on high-end phones are willing to pay a high price to capture those phones as soon as possible (see,e.g., www.RIPmobile.com), while those with less selective collection strategies will aim to keep reverse logistics costs low.
OEMs that are engaged in cell phone take-back and reprocessing usually do this through third parties. In some cases, the third party pays the OEM a certain amount per collected phone of their brand; in others, the OEM pays the third party for its service. Independent of how reverse
logistics of retired cell phones are organized, its economic costs are currently substantial.
This is in agreement with literature that states that reverse logistics costs make up 80% of total end-of-use management cost for WEEE [52].