Used Products Return Service Based on Ambient Recommender Systems to Promote Sustainable Choices

This chapter presents a brief review of product recovery management (PRM), ambient intelligence and recommender systems. It describes the emerging technologies and platforms. PRM consists of two key steps, namely, collecting end-of-life (EoL) products from end users and reprocessing the returns to capture their remaining value. The objective of PRM is to make effective use of returns so as to maximise the value of this resource. Product recovery requires that EoL products are acquired from the end users so that the value-added operations can be processed and the products can be resold in the market. Product-embedded information devices, a new generation of products, are available in the market. Among other innovative features, these products allow the monitoring of new parameters of the product and its environment along its whole life cycle. Unlike the actual approach of data creation, management and use, which focuses on product type, new emerging technologies allow focusing on product items.