Improving Municipal System for Solid Waste Management Using GIS-techniques and Route Optimization

Abstract

Environmental pollution is one of the greatest problems in every urban area and it is the result of increased solid waste generation. In the process of solid waste management collection and the transportation require almost a half of the total cost. Therefore, a small improvement in this sUb-system can result a significant saving in total cost. In this paper, general methodology of route optimization for solid waste collection is presented. It is also presented a system for monitoring of waste collection and a city ecological information database. Direct database accessing and using GIS-techniques provide relevant information for visualization and planning. As an example, one typical communal vehicle route was analysed and the result was possible saving of 2700 km per year. The savings in total cost could be up to 40% by developing new software or using some of the existing commercial software.