A Bi-level meta-heuristic approach for a hazardous waste management problem

Abstract

This study concentrates on designing a medical waste management system with a hierarchical structure, including a local government and a waste management planner. The upper-level seeks to design and control the waste management facilities by minimizing the environmental risks related to the disposal of medical waste. While, the lower-level model is to determine the waste collection plans by only minimizing its total operational costs. Therefore, this study develops a bi-level mathematical model, in which the benefits of the both stakeholders are taken into account. As this problem poses difficulty in searching for the optimal solution, a bi-level meta-heuristic approach based on the Genetic Algorithm (GA) is employed for solving the problem. Finally, a case study is conducted to show that the proposed model and solution approach are practical and efficient.