Analysis and location of urban solid waste collection/inspection centers for a reverse logistics network: A case study in São Mateus-ES

Abstract

The lack of planning in many Brazilian cities that has occurred due to urban population and economic growth has affected public service infrastructure. The collection of urban solid waste (USW) is one of these impacted services and has used open dumps as a short-term solution, causing serious environmental impacts. However, the increase in USW has motivated the Brazilian government to promote a National Solid Waste Policy that aims, among other objectives, to close these open dumps by 2014 and to deploy selective collection, reverse logistics and wet waste composting in Brazil. Landfills must be designed and enabled through the selective collection service. This paper proposes a methodological approach based on a mathematical model to place USW collection/inspection centers that will allow the centralization of waste using reverse distribution centers. A case study was conducted in São Mateus-ES, Brazil, to illustrate the complete data collection and deployment process, which helped to make the model more accurate and to approximate reality to aid public officials' decision-making processes.