Most supply chain professionals involved in the RFID industry are focused on the endgame: widespread, item-level tagging of consumer goods with RFID tags that supply chain partners will be able to use to track products, and to ensure that store shelves are filled with the correct products at the proper time, in order to improve sales and consumers satisfaction.
But what impact will these billions of RFID tags have on the waste stream, and on the established recycling processes into which products and packaging are placed at the end of their life cycles? And how could RFID tags be utilized to improve current procedures for collecting and processing products when consumers are finished using them? These are questions at the forefront of two separate efforts within the RFID community.
Source: RFID Journal, http://www.rfidjournal.com