Mapping the E-Waste Recycling Research Landscape (2015–2025): A Bibliometric Analysis of Publication Trends, Thematic Structure, and Leading Contributors

This study mapped the research landscape of e-waste recycling published between 2015 and 2025, drawing on 925 Scopus-indexed articles. Annual output rose from 38 records to 143 over the period, subject to the indexing and normalisation qualifications set out in Sec. 3.1. The literature is organised into four interlinked thematic clusters spanning sustainability and waste management, behavioural determinants of recycling, environmental exposure and human health. Behaviour-related keywords form a comparatively less extensive component of the co-occurrence network despite occupying a structurally well-connected position within it, and consumer-behaviour studies account for 142 of the 925 records. Output is concentrated geographically, institutionally and by publication outlet. What the study establishes is the field's conceptual structure, meaning the relationships among the concepts its literature uses. It does not establish the field's intellectual structure, its collaboration networks, or whether what any cluster has found is sound. Those would require citation-based mapping, co-authorship analysis and qualitative synthesis respectively. For researchers, the map carries three practical implications. It identifies the behavioural cluster as a coherent, established, but comparatively small stream, and therefore a priority for dedicated synthesis and primary research. It identifies the geographic narrowness of the evidence base as a structural limitation, with African, Latin American and rural settings under-represented. And it makes the boundaries between the field's disciplinary streams visible, which is useful for cross-disciplinary work linking consumer decisions to the contamination and health outcomes documented in Clusters 3 and 4. For editors and research funders, the concentration findings indicate where deliberate intervention would broaden the evidence base: supporting behavioural research in under-represented regions, and encouraging submissions that connect the behavioural and environmental-health streams rather than developing them in parallel.

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