SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS, cilt.16, ss.197-208, 2009 (SCI-Expanded)
The recovery and recycling of lignocellulosic fibers have experienced an important increase in the last few years. In 2004, the apparent world consumption of virgin cellulosic fibers for papermaking purposes was around 188 million tones. The apparent consumption of recovered paper in the world during the same year was 177 million tones. This value was only 6.2% lower than the apparent consumption of virgin fibers from these values. It can be observed that the availability of this raw material is really important and their importance will grow when the consumption per capita of paper in developing countries achieves comparable values of developed countries.