A multi-objective location-routing model for dental waste considering environmental factors

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Operations Research
• Public Health

Background:

• Infectious medical waste (IMW) generation is increasing, posing significant challenges, especially for small medical waste generation centers (MWGC) lacking treatment facilities.
• Improper IMW management leads to substantial societal costs and irreparable environmental damage, necessitating effective waste management programs for smaller healthcare providers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a location-routing model for optimizing infectious medical waste management.
• To address the multi-objective nature of waste management by minimizing costs, environmental pollution, public risk, and arrival time violations.

Main Methods:

• A multi-period location-routing model with four objective functions was formulated.
• Fuzzy chance-constrained programming was employed to handle uncertainty in dental waste treatment demand.
• The revised multi-choice goal programming method was used to solve the mathematical model.

Main Results:

• The proposed model successfully balances the four objective functions: cost, environmental pollution, public risk, and time violations.
• Sensitivity analyses demonstrated the model's ability to adapt to parameter changes.

Conclusions:

• The developed location-routing model provides an effective framework for managing infectious medical waste from small healthcare facilities.
• The fuzzy programming approach enhances the model's applicability to real-world scenarios with uncertain demands.
• The study validates the model using a case study of dental clinics in Babol city, Iran.