Solid Waste Management System Analysis by Multiobjective Mixed Integer Programming Model

The conflict between economic optimization and environmental protection has received wide attention in recent research programs for solid waste management system planning. The purpose of this analysis is to apply multiobjective mixed integer programming techniques for reasoning the potential conflict between environmental and economic goals and for evaluating sustainable strategies for waste management in a metropolitan region. The information incorporated into the optimization objectives include economic impacts, characterized by operational income and cost for waste management, air quality impacts from discharges of target pollutants due to waste incineration, noise impacts from various types of facilities operation, and traffic flow increments by garbage truck fleets. The constraint set thereby consists of mass balance, capacity limitation, operation, financial and related environmental quality constraints. Optimal strategies obtained from such an analytical scheme may provide a set of total solutions for long-term waste stream allocation, siting, resource recovery and tipping fees evaluation. The case study in the city of Kaohsiung in Taiwan is included as a demonstration.