Optimization of municipal solid waste management using a coordinated framework.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Engineering
• Operations Research
• Environmental Economics

Background:

• Municipal solid waste (MSW) management faces significant logistical challenges due to increasing waste generation and inadequate infrastructure.
• Existing systems struggle to efficiently coordinate diverse stakeholders, including waste suppliers, product consumers, and service providers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a coordinated framework for complex MSW management systems.
• To facilitate a competitive market that optimizes stakeholder profits and balances waste supply and demand.
• To integrate policy incentives, such as taxation, for environmental impact mitigation.

Main Methods:

• Development of a coordinated framework using an optimization problem solver.
• Implementation of a competitive market mechanism for stakeholder transactions.
• Analysis of a case study in Mexico, including the evaluation of a tax on open dump disposal.

Main Results:

• The framework successfully accommodates multiple stakeholders and maximizes collective profit while ensuring non-negative individual profits.
• A competitive market approach accelerates transactions and manages complex logistical constraints effectively.
• A tax of $5.1 USD/tonne on open dump disposal was identified as the minimum effective rate to eliminate this disposal method.

Conclusions:

• The proposed framework provides an efficient and equitable solution for complex MSW management.
• Policy incentives, specifically taxation on open dumping, can effectively steer waste management practices towards sustainability.
• The model demonstrates the potential to significantly reduce or eliminate environmentally harmful disposal methods like open dumping.