Material Flow Analysis as a Tool for Product End-of-use Management

Paper in proceeding, 2013

Material flow analysis (MFA) has been widely used as a tool to assess national and regional material flows. Using a case study, this paper demonstrates one other way to use MFA: as a tool for a company’s product end-of-use (EoU) management. Three main activities emerged during the study with valuable results: (1) the traditional MFA provided flow diagrams, (2) inflow analysis allowed basic feasibility analysis of EoU product capture, and (3) product chain description provided a rough sketch of key actors and their decisions. Together, results can be used as the foundation for understanding product fate and reveal potential avenues and barriers to improving a company’s EoU management.