Abstract
Each year, a large amount of waste paper (WP) is generated in Japan, and due to the change in lifestyle with the COVID-19 pandemic, the WP collection and recycling system in Japan faces new challenges. Although the government of Japan has installed WP collection systems, the efficiency of these traditional WP collection systems is too low, and this causes inconvenience to the governments, residents, and other stakeholders. On the other hand, some recycling companies in Japan are trying to establish a nontraditional WP collection system by setting their own WP collection stations in cooperative supermarkets. Yet, the efficiency of this new system has not been clarified. This research aims to investigate the current status, operational characteristics, and the role of recycling companies’ WP collection stations in the Japanese WP collection system. By performing trade area analysis and stepwise OLS regression, this research will evaluate WP collection stations’ efficiency. Moreover, this research will also discuss how the new WP collection system improves WP collection efficiency and residents’ convenience. The results show that WP collection stations efficiency is particularly high in large supermarkets with many parking spaces and long business hours, as well as in areas with many families with children. Recycling companies’ WP collection system could create a system, which can satisfy resident, government, and recycling company interests at the same time.
Highlights
Despite the rapid expansion of the electronic publication business, usage of paper is steadily increasing and has exceeded 400 million tons per year globally
More than half of the paper consumption occurs in China, the USA, and Japan [1]
The research result can be generalized to the status of waste paper (WP) collection in other cities in
Summary
Despite the rapid expansion of the electronic publication business, usage of paper is steadily increasing and has exceeded 400 million tons per year globally. More than half of the paper consumption occurs in China, the USA, and Japan [1]. This enormous consumption of paper could lead to various environmental problems such as forest degradation, contaminated gas and wastewater emission, and shortage in landfill capacity. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more people tend to use in-home deliveries and spend more time staying indoors cleaning their homes. This change in lifestyle means more WP will be generated and will bring new challenges to the WP collection and recycling system [4,5]
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