INCORPORATING SUSTAINABILITY INTO THE SUPERSTRUCTURAL SYNTHESIS OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
Special Symposium - Environmental Protection & Sustainability
Environmental Protection & Sustainability - II
Keywords: MINLP model, sustainable superstructure network, municipal solid waste (MSW)
ABSTRACT: The proposed work describes the development of a superstructural approach to the synthesis or reconstruction of sustainable networks dealing with municipal solid waste (MSW) within rural and urban communities. The approach is based on log-term multiobjective mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) methods. Considering economic and environmental criteria, simultaneously, gives rise to sustainable solutions that are economically effective and environmentally benign at the same time.
SCOPE: The objective of overall MSW management is to propose optimal MSW management networks, where it is important to look at the broader picture including processes such as waste collection, transportation, treatment, recycling and the selling of secondary material and energy, and the final disposal. So far only economic criterion has been considered (e.g. Iršič Bedenik and Kravanja, 2006) which gave rise to economically effective MSW network solutions. A typical network comprises elements for interregional waste collection, recycling, treatment and disposal, where a trade-off is established only between cost and revenue terms. In order to obtain solutions which reflect a trade-off between economic and environmental issues, a suitable environmental criterion is now defined and added to the profit objective function to propose optimal and sustainable networks for MSW management based on long-term optimization. The recycling of MSW to recover useful materials, and recycling energy from this waste by incineration is a well known sustainable way of dealing with MSW. Therefore, a sustainable superstructure should be comprised of alternatives for minimal or zero waste emissions, minimal use of land, minimal transportation and operation costs and maximal amounts of recycled material and energy. An MINLP model has been developed because MSW management deals with networks containing continuous and discrete decisions. Sets of non-inferior Pareto optimal solutions with different optimal structures have been obtained.
CONCLUSION: The obtained optimal networks simultaneously integrate and reflect different considerations for economic and environmental criteria. The solutions indicate that MSW management can be profitable and sustainable at the same time.
REFERENCE:
IRŠIČ BEDENIK, Nataša, KRAVANJA, Zdravko. An optimal model of collecting center allocation for the management of municipal solid waste. The second ICEST, Houston, Texas, USA, August 19-22, 2006. Paper abstracts, American Academy of Sciences, 2006, str. 29.
Presented Monday 17, 11:35 to 11:55, in session Environmental Protection & Sustainability - II (S-7B).
