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The Waste Input‐Output Approach to Materials Flow Analysis
Author(s) -
Nakamura Shinichiro,
Nakajima Kenichi,
Kondo Yasushi,
Nagasaka Tetsuya
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of industrial ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.377
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1530-9290
pISSN - 1088-1980
DOI - 10.1162/jiec.2007.1290
Subject(s) - material flow analysis , material flow , scrap , industrial ecology , material balance , raw material , computer science , flow (mathematics) , point (geometry) , composition (language) , input/output , base (topology) , matrix (chemical analysis) , product (mathematics) , process engineering , industrial engineering , mechanical engineering , mathematics , waste management , materials science , engineering , sustainability , chemistry , ecology , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , organic chemistry , composite material , biology , operating system
A general analytical model of materials flow analysis (MFA) incorporating physical waste input‐output is proposed that is fully consistent with the mass balance principle. Exploiting the triangular nature of the matrix of input coefficients, which is obtained by rearranging the ordering of sectors according to degrees of fabrication, the material composition matrix is derived, which gives the material composition of products. A formal mathematical definition of materials (or the objects, the flow of which is to be accounted for by MFA) is also introduced, which excludes the occurrence of double accounting in economy‐wide MFAs involving diverse inputs. By using the model, monetary input‐output (IO) tables can easily be converted into a physical material flow account (or physical input‐output tables [PIOT]) of an arbitrary number of materials, and the material composition of a product can be decomposed into its input origin. The first point represents substantial saving in the otherwise prohibitive cost that is associated with independent compilation of PIOT. The proposed methodology is applied to Japanese IO data for the flow of 11 base metals and their scrap (available as e‐supplement on the JIE Web site).