A linear programming model for the separate refuse collection service

Recently, the interest in the use of mathematical models for solving urgent public problems has increased. The scope of this paper is to investigate a linear programming model to reduce the costs in the organization of municipal refuse collection, by minimizing the maximum amount of refuse collected in a day. It is our intention to give a contribution to improve the efficiency of the decisions taken at a tactical level in the complex refuse disposal framework. Particularly, we point out the additional benefits, always with respect to service efficiency, that the introduction of a separate refuse collection can imply. A public system is faced with a large amount of practical issues which have to be solved to make the services offered to the citizens more efficient. This paper deals with the common problem of costs reduction in the organization of the municipal household refuse collection. First a linear model for the standard problem is applied to the data of the city of Brescia. Then a generalization of the model based on the modern concept of separate refuse collection is presented and examples obtained on data for the city of Brescia are given, assuming the separate collection of two and three different types of refuse. In both cases the solutions of the models give an insight for a more efficient management of the refuse service.