Analysis of the Past Seven Years of Waste-Related Doctoral Dissertations: A Digitalization and Consumer e-Waste Studies Mystery

Abstract

Solving global sustainability challenges is based on a well-researched understanding of the corresponding underlying problems, key contributing factors, and current state-of-the-art. Utilizing the scope of recent doctoral studies is one potent way to map current young researchers nowadays and near future research focus areas and directions. Here, the authors focused on waste management, especially, mapping dissertations on the grooving global challenge of electronic waste. Currently, this is the first scoping study of its kind, about e-waste -related trends within the circle of waste management-related doctoral studies. Apparently, in a waste-related context, dissertations have a low interest in directly focusing on the topic of consumable e-waste, even though this waste stream is the world’s fastest-growing domestic waste stream. Only a handful of doctoral dissertations, related to e-waste management, were found in the study. In a more general waste-related benchmarking/comparing mapping search, the ProQuest Digital Dissertations database was found to contain 201 dissertations between the years 2015 and 2022, covering waste matters in general. E-waste was covered in six of these 201 dissertations. These six did not have any real overlapping between each other and their research areas. Further thesis content analysis revealed e-waste topics to be currently addressed through consumer behavior, material recovery processes, forecasting, and robotics. The need for future research in the areas of consumable e-waste management is also widely discussed.