Municipal solid waste management system: decision support through systems analysis

Thesis submitted to the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental EngineeringThe present study intends to show the development of systems analysis model applied to solid waste management system, applied into AMARSUL, a solid waste management system responsible for the management of municipal solid waste produced in Setúbal peninsula, Portugal. The model developed intended to promote sustainable decision making, covering the four columns: technical, environmental, economic and social aspects. To develop the model an intensive literature review have been conducted. To simplify the discussion, the spectrum of these systems engineering models and system assessment tools was divided into two broadly-based domains associated with fourteen categories although some of them may be intertwined with each other. The first domain comprises systems engineering models including cost-benefit analysis, forecasting analysis, simulation analysis, optimization analysis, and integrated modeling system whereas the second domain introduces system assessment tools including management information systems, scenario development, material flow analysis, life cycle assessment (LCA), risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment, socio-economic assessment, and sustainable assessment. The literature performed have indicated that sustainable assessment models have been one of the most applied into solid waste management, being methods like LCA and optimization modeling (including multicriteria decision making(MCDM)) also important systems analysis methods. These were the methods (LCA and MCDM) applied to compose the system analysis model for solid waste. The life cycle assessment have been conducted based on ISO 14040 family of norms; for multicriteria decision making there is no procedure neither guidelines, being applied analytic hierarchy process (AHP) based Fuzzy Interval technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Multicriteria decision making have included several data from life cycle assessment to construct environmental, social and technical attributes, plus economic criteria obtained from collected data from stakeholders involved in the study. The results have shown that solutions including anaerobic digestion in mechanical biological treatment plant plus anaerobic digestion of biodegradable municipal waste from source separation, with energetic recovery of refuse derived fuel (RDF) and promoting pays-as-you-throw instrument to promote recycling targets compliance would be the best solutions to implement in AMARSUL system. The direct burning of high calorific fraction instead of RDF has not been advantageous considering all criteria, however, during LCA, the results were the reversal. Also it refers that aerobic mechanical biological treatment should be closed.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - SFRH/BD/27402/200

モンゴル国ウランバートル市の持続的廃棄物管理の改善のためのLCAと多基準意思決定分析

In last years, as the lifestyle and socio-economic situation of the citizens is changing, in this regards amount of the municipal waste and type of waste are also increasing in the Ulaanbaatar city. This research analyzed each of the four waste disposal methods, to develop and select the waste management best option. To estimates economic efficiency Life cycle cost analysis methods based on the municipal waste disposal budget data; used tool a Cost-benefit analysis of each scenario explores opportunities to increase waste revenues and reduce annual costs. Also analyzes Life cycle impact assessment for each waste treatment option and includes a Life cycle assessment that considers direct and indirect GHG emissions during landfilling, waste incineration, composting, recycling, or energy consumption from waste treatment in Ulaanbaatar city. This research was conducted based on the Multi criteria decision analysis method for evaluating the performance of each scenario considered hereafter as well as interviews with experts. These interviews were used to identify key ideas related to waste management. These issues have been considered using Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution analysis to determine the potential impacts of environmental, economic, technical, and social factors, which were analyzed for each waste disposal method to develop and select the best option. As the result, MBT plant has not been advantageous considering all criteria. However, waste incineration is the most cost-effective option in Ulaanbaatar city in terms of saving coal resources and reducing coal production.北九州市立大

Hazardous Waste Landfill Siting using GIS Technique and Analytical Hierarchy Process

Disposal of large amount of generated hazardous waste in power plants, has always received communities' and authori¬ties attentions. In this paper using site screening method and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) a sophisticated approach for siting hazardous waste landfill in large areas is presented. This approach demonstrates how the evaluation criteria such as physical, socio-economical, technical, environmental and their regulatory sub criteria can be introduced into an over layer technique to screen some limited appropriate zones in the area. Then, in order to find the optimal site amongst the primary screened site utilizing a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method for hierarchy computations of the process is recommended. Using the introduced method an accurate siting procedure for environmental planning of the landfills in an area would be enabled. In the study this approach was utilized for disposal of hazardous wastes of Shahid Rajaee thermal power plant located in Qazvin province west central part of Iran. As a result of this study 10 suitable zones were screened in the area at first, then using analytical hierarchy process a site near the power plant were chosen as the optimal site for landfilling of the hazardous wastes in Qazvin province

Planning Water Resources Allocation Under Multiple Uncertainties Through a Generalized Fuzzy Two-Stage Stochastic Programming Method

© 2014 IEEEThis work was supported by the Natural Sciences Foundation (51190095, 51225904), the 111 Project (B14008), and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Waste Collection Vehicle Routing Problem: Literature Review

Waste generation is an issue which has caused wide public concern in modern societies, not only for the quantitative rise of the amount of waste generated, but also for the increasing complexity of some products and components. Waste collection is a highly relevant activity in the reverse logistics system and how to collect waste in an efficient way is an area that needs to be improved. This paper analyzes the major contribution about Waste Collection Vehicle Routing Problem (WCVRP) in literature. Based on a classification of waste collection (residential, commercial and industrial), firstly the key findings for these three types of waste collection are presented. Therefore, according to the model (Node Routing Problems and Arc Routing problems) used to represent WCVRP, different methods and techniques are analyzed in this paper to solve WCVRP. This paper attempts to serve as a roadmap of research literature produced in the field of WCVRP

Facility Location Problems: Models, Techniques, and Applications in Waste Management

This paper presents a brief description of some existing models of facility location problems (FLPs) in solid waste management. The study provides salient information on commonly used distance functions in location models along with their corresponding mathematical formulation. Some of the optimization techniques that have been applied to location problems are also presented along with an appropriate pseudocode algorithm for their implementation. Concerning the models and solution techniques, the survey concludes by summarizing some recent studies on the applications of FLPs to waste collection and disposal. It is expected that this paper will contribute in no small measure to an integrated solid waste management system with specific emphasis on issues associated with waste collection, thereby boosting the drive for e�ective and e�cient waste collection systems. The content will also provide early career researchers with some necessary starting information required to formulate and solve problems relating to FLP

Temporal and spatial changes of water quality and management strategies of Dianchi Lake in southwest China

Temporal and spatial changes to the water quality of Dianchi Lake in southwest China were investigated using monthly monitoring data from 2005 to 2012. Dianchi Lake is divided into two parts, Caohai Lake and Waihai Lake, by a man-made dike. Caohai Lake lies at the north of Dianchi Lake, while Waihai Lake is the main water body of Dianchi Lake and accounts for 96.7% of the whole area of the lake. Based on the analysis of total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and chlorophyll <i>a</i> (Chl <i>a</i>) concentrations, it was determined that, in Caohai Lake, the annual concentrations of these variables ranged from 0.19–1.46 mg L⁻¹, 6.11–16.79 mg L⁻¹, 0.06–0.14 mg L⁻¹, respectively. In addition, the annual concentrations of TP, TN and Chl <i>a</i> in Waihai Lake ranged between 0.13 and 0.20 mg L⁻¹, 1.82 and 3.01 mg L⁻¹, and 0.04 and 0.09 mg L⁻¹, respectively. Cluster analysis (CA) classified the 10 monitoring sites into two clusters (cluster A and cluster B) based on similarities of water quality characteristics. Our data revealed that the current status of water quality within Caohai Lake was much worse than that of Waihai Lake. Water quality was seriously degraded during the economic boom near the period of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" (2005–2010), and gradually improved from 2010 to 2012 because of the "standard emission directive to industry". The main factors that influenced the spatial and temporal changes to water quality were natural factors including lake evolution and regional characteristic as well as human factors such as pollution load into the lake and management strategies that were already adopted. Some activities and regulations were implemented to enhance the lake environment by controlling wastewater emissions and establishing regulations to protect the lakes in the Yunnan Province. However, problems with institutional fragmentation (horizontal and vertical), simple treatment methods, low-intensity investment in pollution control, and lack of meaningful endogenous pollution control strategies were still present in the lake management strategy. To solve these problems, suitable control measures are needed, especially considering the current old-age status of Dianchi Lake. The fundamental improvement of the water quality within Caohai Lake was dependent on the measures taken in the upper reaches of the Caohai Watershed, including further recovery of submerged plants, resource utilization by floating plants and the reinforcement of sediment disposal. Management strategies for endogenous pollution in Waihai Lake were mainly dependent on restocking algae-eating fish and the ecological restoration of macrophytes. In this way, the swamping trend and the ageing process that is occurring in Dianchi Lake can be stunted. And the management strategies would be a contribution to the management of water conflicts between mankind and ecosystems in similar lakes

Optimal planning of hybrid power generation system towards low carbon development

In Malaysia, the energy sector is identified as one of the major carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters. Electricity in Malaysia is primarily generated from coal, natural gas, diesel, oil and hydro. The government of Malaysia encourages power producers to shift towards the use of renewable energy (RE) and reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. There is a clear need for a systematic method to sustainably plan the fleet-wide electricity generation and capacity expansion towards fulfilling the forecasted electricity demand and simultaneously meet the emission reduction target. A comprehensive superstructure consisting o f all existing (i.e. Pulverized Coal (PC), Natural Gas Open Cycle (NGOC)) and new power generation technologies (i.e., Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC), nuclear, solar, biom ass and M unicipal Solid W aste (M SW )) was constructed at the early stage of model development in this study. Towards this end, three different models have been developed and implemented in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) as follows: 1) Single period model for electricity generation mix that is designed to satisfy the electricity demand until the year 2020 for Peninsular Malaysia, 2) Multi period model for selection o f power generation technology that is designed to satisfy the forecasted electricity demand from year 2012 to 2025 in Iskandar Malaysia (IM) and 3) Multi-period optimization model that is developed to determine the optimal location o f new RE generation stations to reduce transmission losses and transportation cost in IM. Options are made available by models 1 and 2 to switch the coal plants to natural gas power plants and to increase the use o f renewable energy in order to meet CO2 target and to minimize cost. Model 3 is capable o f predicting the cost-optimal generation capacity, type o f biomass-energy conversion technology and location for the construction and operation of new biomass power plants. The models can provide vital tools to assist the government in policy making

Optimizing Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management System under Multiple Uncertainties

To define a holistic and systematic approach to municipal waste management, an integrated municipal solid waste management (IMSWM) system is proposed. This system includes functional elements of waste generation, source handling, and processing, waste collection, waste processing at facilities, transfer, and disposal. Multi-objective optimization algorithms are used to develop an optimum IMSWM that can satisfy all main pillars of sustainable development, aiming to minimize the total cost of the system (economic), and minimize the total greenhouse gas emissions (environmental), while maximizing the total social suitability of the system (social). For the social objective, the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is used to identify the main parameters that affect the social suitability of the system. This research focuses on developing an optimized holistic model that considers all four main components of a modern IMSWM namely transfer, recycling, treatment, and disposal. The model is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem and solved using the epsilon constraint handling method. A metaheuristic method is developed using non dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA) to deal with larger problems. A solution repair function is developed to handle several equality constraints included in the proposed IMSWM model. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to identify the effect of changes in parameters on the objective functions. Based on the results, the proposed metaheuristic algorithm based on NSGA-II performed better than other algorithms. The interval-parameter programming (IPP) methods are used to consider various uncertainties that exist in the system. The model is applied to the case study of the Australian capital territory (ACT). The data is gathered from several resources including Australian national waste reports, and ACT government transport Canberra and city services (TCCS). Based on the waste characteristic and city map several feasible scenarios are recommended. Several non-dominated solutions are identified for the model that the decision-maker can choose the most desirable solution based on the preferences. Based on the importance of any objective function at any time the decision-maker can choose a solution to suit the needs