69th International Atlantic Economic Conference

March 24 - 27, 2010 | Prague, Czech Republic

Industrial Waste Management: An Establishment Linked Input-Output Data Analysis for Japan

Saturday, 27 March 2010: 15:10
Masao Nakamura, Ph.D. , Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
In this paper we estimate the amounts of various types of waste and by-products generated in the production processes of establishments in Japanese manufacturing industries.  We use the METI survey data (Survey on the Industrial Waste and By-Products, 2006) which is linked to the Japanese Input-Output table.  This survey gives the amounts of 37 types of industrial wastes generated for four different levels of the production processes (generation, intermediate reduction, reuse-recycle, and disposal to landfill) at 5048 establishments.  Using this linked data and the energy/CO2 requirements of industrial waste treatments, we are also able to calculate the induced amounts of industrial wastes.  For example, waste oil and waste plastic were widely generated at 3080 and 3694 establishments, respectively.  Estimated amounts of waste oil and waste plastic generated range, respectively, between 0 and 2.50 and between 0 and 2.11 (metric) tonnes per million yen output.  On the other hand, waste ferroalloy slag is produced at only 11 establishments, and its quantity ranges from 5.8 to 64.6 tonnes per million yen output.  We estimate that every one million yen worth of automobile production induces, for example, 0.2928 tonnes of all wastes combined in hot rolling process and 0.2631 tonnes of all wastes combined in iron steel making.  We estimate that 1 million yen worth of automobile production generates 1.77 tonnes of all wastes combined.  We conclude that there is considerable room for Japanese manufacturing establishments to improve their performance in waste output.