Robust interval quadratic programming and its application to waste management under uncertainty

Abstract

Background: No country has ever experienced as large or as fast an increase in municipal solid waste (MSW) quantities that China is now facing. The MSW generation rate in the City of Changchun continues to increase since it has been encountered swift urbanization, industrialization and economic development during the past decades. Results: In this study, a robust interval quadratic programming method is developed for the planning of MSW management in the City of Changchun, China. The developed method can not only tackle uncertainties expressed as interval values, fuzzy sets, and their combinations, but also reflect economies-of-scale effects on waste disposal of cost. Conclusions: The results are valuable for helping governmental officials more intuitive to know some basic situation, such as optimal waste-flow allocation, waste-flow routing, facility-capacity expansion, and system cost over the planning horizon. Results can also be used to generate decisions for supporting the city's long-term MSW management and planning, and thus help managers to identify desired MSW management policies in association with cost minimization under uncertainty.