Newspaper recycling: the measurement of yield loss

Abstract

With recycling, new newspaper is produced using new and old fibres as inputs. Each time old newspaper is recycled, it loses some percentage of its fibre. This loss, in percentages, changes in successive iterations. The problem is to measure this asymptotic yield loss. This information is important to measure the amount of old newspaper necessary to produce the final output in the required quantity. The problem leads to a higher order nonlinear difference equation. Exact solution is possible since the difference equation is linearizable.