A strategic design approach for optimization of regional hazardous waste management systems

摘要

The planning and design of a regionalhazardous waste management system involvesselection of treatment and disposal technologiesand sites, allocation of hazardous waste fromgenerator to the sites and selection of thetransportation routes. To arrive at the optimumconfiguration of system components, theconventional approach uses the annual wastegeneration rate as the design criterion. This paperinvestigates limitations of this design criterionin detail and presents an improved strategic design approach.The strategic design approach is based on the adaptive useof cumulative hazardous waste generation and annual wastegeneration rates. Experience with the example problemsolved shows its superiority over the conventionalapproach in terms of reduced cost as well as risk. Furtherthe solution identified by the proposed approacheliminates the possibility of exhaustion of disposalsites during the planning period, and therefore serves asa robust planning tool.