Managing solid waste through discrete location analysis: A case study in central Portugal

Abstract

In order to meet European Union Directive 1999/31/EC, ERSUC, the company responsible for the municipal solid waste management system in the Litoral Centro area of Portugal decided to change the main processing technology used within the system to incineration with energy recovery. In this article, we describe a study recently made at the Universities of Aveiro and Coimbra under contract with ERSUC to help the company determine the best way of redeploying the existing system. The approach adopted in the study relied heavily on the application of discrete location models.

Keywords:

• location
• integer programming
• solid waste
• Portugal

Acknowledgements

The authors thankfully acknowledge the detailed corrections and valuable suggestions made by two anonymous reviewers.