Robust Waste Transfer Station Planning by Stochastic Programming

Abstract

Regarding the infrastructure planning in waste management, the future situation in the Czech Republic or in some other waste developing countries is unknown due to the undecided support from the government or the EU. Furthermore, the production of waste depends on many factors (e.g. separation rate) that are uncertain. The level of recycling will be influenced by technical progress while taking into account the compromise between maximum waste material recovery and the economic impact of the process. Nevertheless, it is important to plan the transportation infrastructure that will be able to support the realization of future projects/development. Such a feature might be the transfer station grid, which can decrease the total transportation costs/impact on the environment. The grid design should be robust with respect to all the possible technological solutions (establishment of waste treatment facilities). In this paper, the mathematical model for grid design of transfer stations is proposed. The model will be presented as a two-stage mixed-integer stochastic programming problem. The model will be tested through a case study on the current situation and possible legislation changes regarding waste management in the Czech Republic. The model scale will be on the micro-regional level proposing a robust transfer station grid design. The realization of these projects takes into consideration possible investments and decides about the capacity of the facility with regards to future government support and donations. The output in the form of recommendation will serve possible investors, municipalities and/or stakeholders from the field of waste management to plan more sustainable projects.