Shinsuke Morisawa, Takashi Sekiguchi and Yoriteru Inoue
(Yoshida Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-01 Japan)

Abstract

Rapid increase of paper production and consumption and resultant increase in paper waste in turn, give larger loads to the municipal solid waste management system. In this study, a mathematical model is developed by describing mass-balance relationships of paper resources in each elemental process in Japanese socio-economical systems such as import, export, production, consumption, recycling and waste treatment of each specific paper resource. The main results obtained under the limits considered, can be summarized as follows; (1)The mathematical model is promising for evaluation of actual paper resource flow. (2)The recently decreasing trend in wastepaper recovery has the promising effect of promoting wastepaper recovery and decreasing paper waste generation, which are generally pointed out recently, were quantitatively examined using the mathematical model and fitted parameters.

Key words: paper resources, paper waste, wastepaper recovery, mathematical model, paper resources life cycle