A sustainable green reverse logistics plan for plastic solid waste management using TOPSIS method

Recycling solid plastic waste is helpful for resource utilisation in a sustainable manner, and this can lead to reverse logistics to recover waste in supply chain management. In developing economies, it is very essential to recover waste and recycle it, as mismanagement of it could hasten the development of negative socioeconomic and environmental issues. This paper investigates plastic waste recycling by means of reverse logistics management. We feature Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), which is a multi-criteria decision-making approach to selecting a suitable warehouse that will assist the decision-maker and supply the product to the re-manufacturing cell by inspecting the waste. The paper also focuses on the carbon emissions that are emitted during re-manufacturing through a mathematical model that minimises the total cost and total carbon emissions. A case study of the plastic re-manufacturing industry in Tripura, India, is shown here to present the steps of the decision support system. The model is programmed with real-life data from the case study and yields a total cost of Rs. 2894.37 and total emissions of 414.15 gm/lt, when the disposal cost is considered; without it, the total cost is Rs. 2668.69 and the total emissions are 413.54 gm/lt. The results obtained are promising for reducing carbon emissions from the recycling process of plastic waste at a lower cost. This research will also help the environment cope with plastic waste, which has become a threat to nature, as well as carbon emissions that come from the industry. Finally, some managerial insights and suitable analyses with pictorial representation are proposed.