Reconfiguring urban mining: Orchestrating multi-actor E-waste supply chains for circular value recovery through an integrated DEMATEL–BWM–Agent-Based Modeling framework

The accelerating generation of e-waste in developing economies presents both an environmental challenge and an opportunity for circular value recovery through urban mining, yet fragmented coordination among heterogeneous formal and informal actors limits the realization of this potential. This study addresses the gap between causal diagnosis and dynamic simulation by proposing an integrated DEMATEL–BWM–Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) framework for reconfiguring multi-actor e-waste supply chains toward enhanced circular value recovery. The framework was operationalized through ten expert panelists who validated fifteen coordination factors. DEMATEL identified causal structures and systemic influence, BWM established strategic priorities, and ABM translated these findings into agent-level behavioral rules and environmental conditions across six orchestration scenarios. The DEMATEL analysis revealed regulatory and institutional factors as primary causal drivers, with regulatory enforcement exerting the strongest systemic influence. The BWM analysis confirmed regulatory enforcement as the most strategically important factor. The ABM simulation demonstrated that combined orchestration achieved a 134.81% improvement in recovered material and a 100% collection rate, while economic incentives provided the best overall multi-metric performance. The constant recovery rate across all scenarios confirmed that improvements were driven by increased formal participation and collection throughput rather than technological efficiency, underscoring systemic coordination failures as the primary barrier to circular value recovery. The priority-causal matrix identified regulatory factors and formal-informal integration as priority intervention points offering both high causal influence and strategic importance. These findings are conditional on expert-elicited parameters and should be interpreted as exploratory simulation evidence rather than externally validated prediction. This study provides a methodological foundation for bridging causal diagnosis, strategic prioritization, and dynamic simulation in circular supply chain research, offering practical guidance for policymakers and practitioners seeking to unlock the value of the urban mine in developing economy contexts.