Optimal planning for the sustainable utilization of municipal solid waste

Journal Article · Sun Dec 15 04:00:00 EST 2013 · Waste Management

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.WASMAN.2013.08.010· OSTI ID:22300336

Santibañez-Aguilar, José Ezequiel ^[1]; Betzabe González-Campos, J. ^[2]; Serna-González, Medardo ^[1]; El-Halwagi, Mahmoud M. ^[3]

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1. Chemical Engineering Department, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, Michoacán 58060 (Mexico)
2. Institute of Chemical and Biological Researches, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, Michoacán 58060 (Mexico)
3. Chemical Engineering Department, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX 77843 (United States)

Highlights: • An optimization approach for the sustainable management of municipal solid waste is proposed. • The proposed model optimizes the entire supply chain network of a distributed system. • A case study for the sustainable waste management in the central-west part of Mexico is presented. • Results shows different interesting solutions for the case study presented. - Abstract: The increasing generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a major problem particularly for large urban areas with insufficient landfill capacities and inefficient waste management systems. Several options associated to the supply chain for implementing a MSW management system are available, however to determine the optimal solution several technical, economic, environmental and social aspects must be considered. Therefore, this paper proposes a mathematical programming model for the optimal planning of the supply chain associated to the MSW management system to maximize the economic benefit while accounting for technical and environmental issues. The optimization model simultaneously selects the processing technologies and their location, the distribution of wastes from cities as well as the distribution of products to markets. The problem was formulated as a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programing problem to maximize the profit of the supply chain and the amount of recycled wastes, where the results are showed through Pareto curves that tradeoff economic and environmental aspects. The proposed approach is applied to a case study for the west-central part of Mexico to consider the integration of MSW from several cities to yield useful products. The results show that an integrated utilization of MSW can provide economic, environmental and social benefits.

• OSTI ID: 22300336
• Journal Information: Waste Management, Journal Name: Waste Management Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 33; ISSN WAMAE2; ISSN 0956-053X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
ACCOUNTING
MARKET
MEXICO
OPTIMIZATION
PLANNING
PROGRAMMING
SANITARY LANDFILLS
SOLID WASTES
URBAN AREAS
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING