Household Solid Waste Recycling Induced Production Values and Employment Opportunities in Taiwan

Esher Hsu¹, Chen-Ming Kuo²

¹Department. of Statistics, National Taipei Univ., Taipei City.
²Department. of Mechanical Eng., I-Shou Univ., Kaohsiung.

DOI: 10.4236/jmmce.2002.12009                

Abstract

Household solid waste recycling has been a major policy of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration. Production values and employment opportunities from recycling are not only a major focus of Taiwan’s Congress, but also the major goal of recycling policies for the EPA. In this study, production values and employment opportunities induced by household solid waste recycling were estimated from a sampling survey. The estimated production values in 1998 were NT$26.9 (USD$0.27) billion from collection/sorting business and NT$44.6 (USD$1.27) billion from the recycling industry. Total estimated added value was approximately NT$35 (USD$1) billion, of which NT$15.5 (USD$0.44) billion was from the collection/sorting business and $19.5 (USD$0.56) billion was from recycling. The collection/sorting business represents about 0.28% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the service sector, and the recycling industry represents about 0.8% of GDP in manufacturing sector in 1998. The combined employment was 189,551, of which 182,538 was collection/sorting business (3.69% of service jobs) and 7,013 positions (0.27% manufacturing jobs) in 1998.

Keywords

Household solid waste, recycling, production values, employment opportunities

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	"Environmental Protection Statistics Monthly – Taiwan Area, the Republic of China” (Taipei, Taiwan: Environmental Protection Administration, 2000).
[2]	Cochran, W. G., Sampling Techniques, third edition (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1977).
[3]	Hsu, E., “An Analysis on Production Value and Employment Opportunities of Solid Waste Recycling” (final report EPA-044-880-129, Taipei, Taiwan: Environmental Protection Administration, 1999).
[4]	Hedayat, A. S., Sinha, B.K., Design and Inference in Finite Population Sampling (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1991).
[5]	“National Income in Taiwan Area, R. O. C.” (Taipei, Taiwan: Directorate-General of Budgets, Accounting, and Statistics, Executive Yuan, 2000).
[6]	“Yearbook of Manpower Survey Statistics, Taiwan Area, R. O. C.” (Taipei, Taiwan: Directorate-General of Budgets, Accounting, and Statistics, Executive Yuan, 2000).