Past, present, and future perspectives on the governance of waste household appliances in China: A 20-year review based on CiteSpace analysis

Abstract

This study offers a systematic review of the research on the treatment of waste household appliances in China in the past 20 years. A total of 1123 related articles were selected from the CNKI database from 1998 to 2020 to sort out the hot spots, evolution and frontier trends. The results show that: (1) In the past 20 years, the research on waste household appliances in China has followed the development path of "society-technology-human", gradually evolving from the macro level to the micro level, and the research in the field of waste household appliances governance has begun to take shape. (2) With the increasing enrichment of research methods and the continuous expansion of research ideas, the research topic breaks through the boundaries of single theory and discipline, and reverse logistics, closed-loop supply chain, recycling behavior, recycling and dismantling technology, etc. have become research hotspots. (3) From the initial study of the management experience of developed countries to the study of recycling management with Chinese characteristics, China's "Internet + recycling"model is ahead of the international level and has become the latest research hotspot.