EnviTech: A Mobile Application to Aid Society on Proper Electronic Waste

(E-Waste) Disposal

A Concept Paper In Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements in Entrepreneurial Mind

By:
MANALOTO, Shemaiah Myrn S.
MONTOYA, Edward Joseph T.
OBMERGA, Borj Jarlo V.
SANTOS, Jerome P.
TUQUERO, Pius Nico R.
BSCS-2A

JANNET T. TECSON
Instructor

2021
I. Introduction
The World keeps evolving, and with it, humans. As time progresses, humans keep
on finding ways to improve their way of living such as the invention of technology which
helps in performing a lot of tasks, as well as making their day-to-day lives much more
comfortable to live. As the needs of every person keep increasing, the demand for new
and improved technological advancements are increasing as well.
This leaves a huge problem for humans. As the volume of technologies being
developed and produced increases, the volume of technologies being replaced or thrown
away also increases. For instance, in the Philippines, the Environmental Management
Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)
reported that the country generated a total of 32,664.41 metric tons of waste electrical
and electronic equipment (WEEE) for the year 2019.
Alongside the problem of quantity is also the manner of disposing these obsolete
electronics that people are replacing. A waste mobile phone alone consists of toxic
substances such as lead, mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals and brominated flame
retardants (BFRs). (Singh, 2020) The improper disposal of these electronic wastes (E-
waste) that contains hazardous chemicals, such as burying or incinerating in landfills,
pollutes the soil, water, and air and can cause serious health problems.
Disposing in relation to E-Waste is not exactly destroying or burying or burning. It
follows more the 3Rs concept: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. For reduce, the number of
e-wastes are cut back as much as possible. To reuse, rather than immediately treating it
as waste, one must seek to repair their electronics first. And lastly, parts and even the
heavy metals collected from e-wastes can be recycled to produce the new technologies.
Some local government and various organizations support the proper disposal of
e-wastes through collection of e-wastes from households. There are also companies that
has proper equipment to recycle these e-wastes. Local electronic repair shops and buy-
and-sell dealers of gadgets inadvertently help in disposal of e-wastes as well through
repairing or salvaging the working parts and, the latter, reusing the still working
technologies.
These lead us to the idea of developing a mobile application that can aid the
society in properly and efficiently disposing their e-waste by being the bridge between
them and these existing e-waste companies, organizations, and repair shops. With the
use of our mobile application, people would be able to dispose their e-wastes without
forsaking the environment and will also support businesses that deal with such wastes.
II. The Business Concept and the Business Model
A. Our Business: EnviTech Management Alliance
B. The Business Goals / Objectives
Main Objective: To alleviate technological waste pollution by aiding
society on proper electronic waste disposal
The toxic chemicals from e-wastes causes a far more threatening
pollution than other wastes. We cannot completely stop producing these
technologies despite them being manufactured with toxic substances.
Therefore, it is our objective to rather alleviate the technological waste pollution
it causes. Local government, various organizations, private companies are
working already to dispose these electronic wastes properly. We aim to
become an aid as bridge between them and the people, may be households or
institutions, in disposing e-wastes eco-friendly and efficiently.
Supporting Objectives:
• To support 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) Method of Waste Disposal
To support our main objective of alleviating technological waste
pollution, we plan to carry it out through the 3Rs. We aim to reduce e-wastes
by salvaging the parts that still works and not to treat the whole broken
technology as waste. Through promoting buying and selling of in-good
condition gadgets or parts, we are reusing these e-wastes that are not
actually waste in the first place but became one because they are replaced
by latest technologies. Lastly, the excess e-wastes that cannot be used to
its original function can still be recycled to produce new electronic parts.
• To promote local electronic repair shops
Local electronic repair shops inadvertently help in disposal of e-
wastes as well through repairing or salvaging the working parts. They aid
the society in e-waste disposal and so we aim to aid them as well by
introducing them to online platform. In this way we only not promote their
 business but also carry out our goal on e-waste disposal management.
• To support electronics-buy-and-sell dealers
Like electronic repair shops, buy-and-sell dealers of different
electronics unintentionally support proper e-waste disposal. And so, we aim
to support them with a new platform highlighting more of their deals.
 C. Business Model
Key Partners
E-Waste Recycling
Companies
Local Electronics-Repair
Shops
Department of
Environment and
Natural Resources
Other Organizations
(Local and Foreign)
Related to Environment
Protection Against
Electronic/Hazardous
Wastes
E-Waste Collection Site
Cost Structure
Mobile App Development Cost
Employees (Developers, Office Workers,
Collectors, Electronics Technicians) Payroll
Customer
Key Activities Value Propositions Customer Segments
Relationships
Platform development Provide a platform for Mobile App Consumer Electronics’
and maintenance buying, selling, Maintenance Market
donating, repairing,
recycling of e-wastes. Wider Area of collection Buy-and-Sell Dealers
Collection of
of E-Waste
E-Wastes
Local Electronics-Repair
Creating new platform
Shops
for buy-and-sell dealers
Transportation of
collected
E-Wastes to partner Introducing online
companies platform for local
electronics-repair shops
Establishing
Partnerships
Key Resources Channels
Tech Platform EnviTech Mobile App
Employees E-Waste Collectors
(Developers, Office
Workers, Collectors,
Electronics
Technicians)
Revenue Streams
E-Waste Collector Vehicles Fee for Collecting E-Wastes
Purchase Door-to-Door
Selling of Collected E-Wastes to Selling of Recovered Parts from
Recycling Companies Collected E-Wastes
• Key Partners
➢ E-Waste Recycling Companies. We will sell collected e-wastes, after
salvaging the functioning parts, for them to recycle.
➢ Local Electronic Repair Shops. Users of our app can inquire to our
partner electronic-repair shops for repair.
➢ Department of Environment and Natural Resources. We need
approval from the DENR since we are dealing with toxic wastes.
➢ Other Organizations (Local and Foreign) Related to Environment
Protection Against Electronic/Hazardous Wastes. This includes local
government units for approval to operate with toxic wastes in the area.
We can also partner with other organizations or private institutions for
better disposal of collected e-wastes.
• Key Activities
➢ Platform development and maintenance. The center of our service is
our mobile application. Besides developing it, continuous maintenance
is required.
➢ Collection of E-Wastes. Through our mobile app, users can request us
to collect their e-wastes door to door.
➢ Transportation of collected E-Waste to partner companies. After
salvaging the reusable parts, excess e-wastes are to be transported to
partner companies for recycling.
➢ Establishing Partnerships. As the bridge, we need to establish great
partnership with recycling companies, local electronic repair shops, and
LGUs to operate.
• Key Resources
➢ Tech Platform. This includes data servers and other resources needed
for developing and publishing our app.
➢ Employees (Developers, Office Workers, Collectors, Electronic
Technicians). Our employees include developers of our mobile
application, office workers or clerical works, collectors of e-wastes, and
in-house electronic technicians that monitors the e-wastes and salvage
 the working parts.
➢ E-Waste Collection Site. A site approved by local government to store
collected e-wastes temporarily for recovering of working parts before
transferring to partner recycling companies.
• Value Propositions
➢ Provide a platform for buying, selling, donating, repairing,
recycling of e-wastes. Through our mobile app, we give our
users/customers options in disposing their e-wastes and help them
conduct it. They could also buy second-hand electronic parts and
gadgets through the app.
➢ Creating new platform for buy-and-sell dealers. We will provide a
new platform solely for buy-and-sell dealers.
➢ Introducing online platform for local electronics-repair shops.
Offering larger market to local electronic-repair shops as inquiring for
repair is made easier through the mobile app.
• Customer Segments
➢ Consumer Electronics’ Market. Whoever the market is for consumer
electronics, can become our customer since the electronic they bought
could later be damaged, replaced, and be treated as e-waste.
➢ Buy-and-Sell Dealers. Our app is designed with buy-and-sell deals in
mind. We target Buy-and-Sell dealers to be one of our main users of the
mobile app.
➢ Local Electronics-Repair Shops. Besides that, they can use our app
as online platform for inquiring repair, they can also be our customer by
buying parts we salvaged from collected e-wastes especially if they need
it for certain repairing.
• Channels
➢ EnviTech Mobile App. Our mobile app will be the main channel for us
to interact with our customers. All transactions are requested and
approved here.
➢ E-Waste Collectors. Although our app does all of our transactions, we
 have collectors that will go to exact location of user who wants his/her
e-waste collected.
• Customer Relationships
➢ Mobile App Maintenance. Since our mobile app is the center of all
transactions, we must maintain our platform to its best state possible to
maintain our relationship to customers.
➢ Wider Area of Collection of E-Wastes. We intend to have a wider area
range for collection of e-waste so that we can reach out to our customers
wherever they are.
• Cost Structure
➢ Mobile App Development Cost. We must pay for the development of
our application, as well as the related platform it needs to work like cloud
server.
➢ E-Wastes Collector Vehicles Purchase. We need to purchase that will
be used by our e-waste collectors to go to our customers location and
pick-up his/her e-waste.
➢ Employees (Developers, Office Workers, Collectors, Electronic
Technicians) Payroll. This is basically the salary of our employees.
• Revenue Streams
➢ Fee for Collecting E-Wastes Door-to-Door. We are paid for collecting
their e-waste door-to-door. Rates depends on how far their location to
the nearest collection site.
➢ Selling of Recovered Parts from Collected E-Wastes. Salvaged parts
by our in-house electricians from the collected e-wastes will be posted
in our items for sale or sell it directly to local repair shops.
➢ Selling of Collected E-Wastes to Recycling Companies. Excess e-
wastes after salvaging working parts will be sold to partner recycling
companies.
 D. Strategy Canvas

6
HIGH
5

0
LOW Price Customer Collection Area of Online Repair Buy-and-Sell
(Collecting) Segment Request Collection Platform Request Platform
Process

Envirocycle Inc. EnviTech E-Waste Mgmt. Phil.

The graph shows the existing company or organization related to e-

waste management and their current standing to several factors. As strategy
canvas, our goal in each factor is also reflected on the graph.
When it comes to pricing for collection of e-waste, we decided to aim for
the middle level as the two e-waste group have a huge gap when it comes to
this factor wherein one is too high and the other is too low.
We refer the customer segment in this as the compact the range of
customers they cater. Both e-waste group are quite limited to a certain
segment, either institutions or households only. That is why we aim to eliminate
this factor by being able to cater every type of customer: individuals,
households, or even institutions.
Collection request process factor refers to the complexity of the inquiry
process for collection of customer’s e-waste. We aim to eliminate this factor as
well by providing a faster and easier way of requesting for collection of
customer’s e-waste.
In terms of area of collection, online platform, and repair request, both
groups showed low level performance in these factors. Therefore, our strategy
is to raise these factors by aiming for a larger area of collection, developing a
better online platform for transactions, and cater repair request as option of e-
waste disposal.
 As one company do not function as buy-and-sell platform and the other
organization does have but it is low level, we intend to develop our app
considering a buy-and-sell feature on it so we could cater buy-and-sell dealers
as well.
There are only few factors for us to consider as these existing
companies and organization cannot be completely considered as our
competitors. Our business is intended to be a bridge between them and the
people and so they are more of our partners rather than competition.
E. Prototype Design (EnviTech Mobile App)
III. References
• DENR Philippines. (2020). EMB: National Policy, Regulatory Framework
Already in Place for E-Waste Mngt. Retrieved from
https://www.denr.gov.ph/index.php/news-events/press-releases/1918-emb-
national-policy-regulatory-framework-already-in-place-for-e-waste-
mngt#:~:text=The%20Global%20Environment%20Report%20showed,on%20
a%20report%20by%20EMB.
• Singh, N., Duan, H., Tang, Y. (2020). Toxicity evaluation of E-waste plastics
and potential repercussions for human health. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019332556
• Globe Philippines. (2019). 5 Places You Can Send or Donate Your Used
Electronics To. Retrieved from
https://www.globe.com.ph/go/technology/article/donate-used-
electronics.html#gref