Dynamic Optimization and Control Strategy for the Planning of a Waste Management System involving Multiple Cities Chapter in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • © 2017 Elsevier B.V.Consumption habits and population growth have drastically increased the waste production around the world. In consequence, several alternatives to use and dispose the municipal solid waste have been proposed. Nevertheless, in most developing countries there is not an adequate management of the residues. Therefore, in this work a mathematical formulation for the optimal planning of a waste management system is proposed, which considers the waste production in a set of distributed sites as well as the separation and distribution of waste into a production system in order to obtain useful products. The mathematical model takes into account the dependence over the time for the variables and parameters in a robust way through a set of differential equations; which are solved via the orthogonal collocation method using finite elements for proper capture of the dynamic behaviour. Furthermore, the proposed approach contemplates the order balances to implement a control strategy with the intention of maximizing the amount of consumed waste. The proposed approach was applied to case study for a small region of Mexico, where there is lack of infrastructure for the adequate waste management. The model is formulated as a mixed integer differential optimization problem, which was reformulated as a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem and was implemented in the software GAMS. Results show that given the data of potential locations for sites, landfills, processing plants and consumers, as well as the prices of useful products, availability of waste, upper and lower limits for unitary costs of the different activities carried out in the waste management system and initial values for inventory and order levels, it is possible to obtain the optimal selection and location of the entities of the waste management system as well as the values of capacity of the plants, material flows to be transported, processed, stored and sold. Finally, the model is useful to make decisions about the design of a waste processing system in order to promote the creating of public polices and cooperation among multiple cities for waste management issues.

publication date

  • October 1, 2017