A paper recycling company converts newspaper, mixed paper, white office paper, and cardboard into pulp for newspaper, packaging paper, and print stock quality paper. The following table summarizes the yield for each kind of pulp recovered from each ton of recycled material.

	Recycling Yield
	Newsprint	Packaging	Print Stock
Newspaper	85%	80%	---
Mixed Paper	90%	80%	70%
White Office Paper	90%	85%	80%
Cardboard	80%	70%	---

For instance, a ton of newspaper can be recycled using a technique that yields 0.85 tons of newsprint pulp. Alternatively, a ton of newspaper can be recycled using a technique that yields tons of packaging paper. Similarly, a ton of cardboard can be recycled to yield 0.8 tons of newspaper or 0.7 tons of packaging paper pulp. Note that newspaper and cardboard cannot be converted to print stock pulp using the techniques available to the recycler.

	Processing cost per ton			Purchase cost per ton	Tons Available
	Newsprint	Packaging	Print Stock
Newspaper	$6.5	$11	---	$15	600
Mixed Paper	$9.75	$12.25	$9.5	$16	500
White Office Paper	$4.75	$7.75	$8.5	$19	300
Cardboard	$7.5	$8.5	---	$17	400

The recycler wants to determine the least costly way of producing 500 tons of newsprint pulp, 600 tons of packaging paper pulp, and 300 tons of print stock quality pulp.

• Create a spreadsheet model for this problem and solve it.
• What is the optimal solution?

Your LP, with carefully defined decision variables and all constraints written out. Include brief explanations of your constraints.

A table showing the optimal values for your decision variables.

 A brief analysis of the strategy your solution recommends. Do not limit your discussion to reporting numbers from your results table.

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