Hybrid oprimization technique for the solid waste collection and disposal problem

Abstract

The United States is an economically rich country whose production of consumer goods is high relative to the size of its population. It is therefore faced increasingly with the problem of what to do with these consumer goods when their utility, as judged by the consumer, has been exhausted. All "used" products (solid waste) are disposed of by one of two methods: recycling or collection and disposal by any of several different ways. Since the collection of solid waste involves routing refuse via various transport modes from the point of generation to the point of disposal, the object of this study is to develop an algorithm which may be used to define and schedule near optimal collection plans for refuse systems facing high seasonal variation in the quantity of solid waste generated.