Multi-Period Network Design Problem in Regional Hazardous Waste Management Systems

Area of Science:

• Environmental Engineering
• Operations Research

Background:

• Effective hazardous waste management requires strategic network design for recycling, treatment, and disposal facilities.
• Regional hazardous waste management involves complex multi-echelon, multi-period logistics and facility planning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a bi-objective model for optimizing hazardous waste facility location and waste flow over time.
• To minimize both total cost and total risk in hazardous waste management networks.
• To evaluate the trade-offs between cost and risk in multi-period network design.

Main Methods:

• Formulation of a bi-objective mixed integer linear programming model for network design.
• Development of an augmented epsilon-constraint algorithm to solve the model.
• Inclusion of disposal center life cycle capacity and facility opening/closing dynamics.
• Computational analysis using a realistic case study.

Main Results:

• The augmented epsilon-constraint algorithm successfully identified distinct, uniformly distributed non-dominated solutions.
• The algorithm efficiently revealed the trade-off between total cost and total risk.
• Multi-period network optimization demonstrated superior objective quality compared to single-period optimization.

Conclusions:

• The proposed model and algorithm provide an effective approach for optimizing hazardous waste management networks.
• The study highlights the benefits of multi-period planning for hazardous waste facility network design.
• Efficiently managing hazardous waste requires balancing economic costs with environmental and safety risks.