Recyclable waste collection planning––a case study

This paper describes a study of planning vehicle routes for the collection of urban recyclable waste. The aim is to create collection routes for every day of the month, to be repeated every month, minimizing the operation cost. Two important features of the problem are the planning of a relatively l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of operational research 2004-11, Vol.158 (3), p.543-554
Main Authors: Teixeira, João, Antunes, António Pais, de Sousa, Jorge Pinho
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Heuristics
Operations research
Periodic vehicle routing
Recycling
Studies
Urban areas
Waste disposal
Waste management
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Summary:This paper describes a study of planning vehicle routes for the collection of urban recyclable waste. The aim is to create collection routes for every day of the month, to be repeated every month, minimizing the operation cost. Two important features of the problem are the planning of a relatively long period of time and the separate collection of three types of waste. The collection operation was modelled in accordance to the practice of the company that manages the collection system. Heuristic techniques were developed to solve the model in three phases: definition of the geographic zones served by the vehicles, definition of the waste type to collect on each day of the month, definition of the collection routes. Preliminary results suggest that significant economies in collection costs are possible.
ISSN:0377-2217
1872-6860
DOI:10.1016/S0377-2217(03)00379-5