Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451

www.elsevier.nl/locate/wasman

Optimization of regional hazardous waste management systems:

an improved formulation
Arvind K. Nema a, S.K. Gupta b,*
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College, Allahabad, 211 004, India
b
Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai- 400 076, India

Accepted 5 August 1999

Abstract
The planning and design of regional hazardous waste management system (RHWMS) involves selection of treatment and dis-
posal facilities, allocation of hazardous wastes and waste residues from generator to the treatment and disposal sites and selection
of the transportation routes. An improved formulation based upon multi-objective integer programming approach is presented to
arrive at the optimal con®guration of RHWMS components. This formulation addresses important practical issues like unique
characteristics of the hazardous wastes re¯ecting on waste±waste and waste±technology compatibility. A utility function approach
is presented to integrate both cost and risk related objectives. An illustrative case example is presented to demonstrate the useful-
ness of the improved formulation as a tool which can be used by environmental planning agencies in regional planning for hazar-
dous waste management. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Hazardous waste management; Regional planning; Treatment and disposal facility location; Waste allocation; Waste±technology com-
patibility; Waste±waste noncompatibility; Cost and risk minimization

1. Introduction di€erent hazardous wastes add considerable complexity

The objective of hazardous waste management is to
ensure safe, ecient and cost e€ective collection, trans-
portation, treatment and disposal of wastes. Selection of
the treatment and disposal facilities and routing of
hazardous wastes and waste residues involve economic
as well as social concerns. Increasing pressure on
resources such as land, energy and ®nance coupled with
strict environmental regulations have made the hazar-
dous waste management problem more complex. Various
agencies (e.g. The World Bank [1], Ministry of Environ-
ment and Forests, Government of India [2], World Health
Organization [3]) have recommended qualitative guide-
lines on ``what should constitute an approved hazardous
waste management facility''. When there are multiple
sources having multiple types of hazardous wastes, then
deciding on where to locate hazardous waste treatment
and disposal facilities and how to allocate wastes
may not be an easy task. The diverse characteristics of
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-22-578-2454; fax: +91-22-578-
3480.
0956-053X/99/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0956-053X(99)00241-X
to the hazardous waste management problem. Di€erent
types of waste streams have distinctly di€erent handling
protocols, treatment possibilities, and disposal alter-
natives [1,2,4]. Di€erent waste streams may or may not
be treated with the same technology depending on the
compatibility between the wastes. Blending of two non-
compatible waste streams may cause undesirable events
like ®re, explosion, generation of ¯ammable or toxic
gas, and generation of heat [1,2,4]. Waste residue gen-
erated from treatment processes needs to be ultimately
transported to a disposal site. Selection of treatment
and disposal facility is based upon the characteristics of
the wastes to be treated. However, the available capa-
city of the disposal facilities may also in¯uence the
choice of the treatment technology. If the capacity of
the disposal facility is limited, one has to opt for such a
treatment technology which generates lower residue
quantities. On the other hand if sucient land®ll capa-
city is available one may opt for a treatment technology
which generates more residues but has some other
advantages. For example, waste from a pesticide-manu-
facturing unit can either be subjected to thermal treatment
442 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451

residue generated to the quantity of waste being pro-

Nomenclature cessed) is relatively high (between 1.1 and 1.3) as com-
pared to the incinerator (residue generation factor
Ctk capacity of technology t at node k between 0.1 and 0.3). Cost and risk involved with the
Drs distance between the nodes r and s (r treatment and disposal technology as well as transporta-
and s represent any pair of nodes) tion of waste play an important role in locating treatment
FC ®xed cost of the treatment or disposal and disposal facilities and selecting the shipment routes. It
technology is possible that a cost-e€ective treatment technology may
FCtk capital or ®xed cost of the technology be more risk prone. Similarly the nearest transportation
t at the site k route may pass through more accident-prone areas.
Hw hazard potential of the waste type w The regional hazardous waste management system
l any transportation link in the system (RHWMS) is a fairly complex system of many interrelated
L set of all the transportation links in components. It is, therefore, essential to consider various
the system components of RHWMS in totality to arrive at an opti-
Prs population impacted if accident occurs mal waste management plan. Mathematical models can
on the link r-s be used to describe the objective, component interactions
Ptk population impacted if accident occurs and available management options. These models can be
at site k due to technology t subjected to rigorous methods of systems analysis. There-
PRrs probability of accident on the link r-s fore, mathematical models provide a systematic means by
PRtk probability of accident at the site k which the decision-maker can explore the various alter-
due to technology t natives in order to identify an optimal management strat-
Qwi quantity of waste type t generated at egy. The objectives of this paper are to: (i) review existing
node i optimization models for hazardous waste management;
Rs site risk and (ii) present a mathematical model which can be used
Rt transportation risk, as a tool to select hazardous waste treatment and disposal
REStw residue generation factor for waste facilities, and transportation routes.
type w at technology t
RHWMS= Regional Hazardous Waste Manage-
ment System 2. Review of existing models for hazardous waste
TCW unit transportation cost for the waste management
type w
TOTC total cost Many researchers have attempted to determine the
TDC treatment or disposal cost type, location, size of treatment and disposal facilities,
TRC transportation cost and the transportation routes from waste generators to
u joint utility function of cost and risk the treatment and disposal facilities using mathematical
VC variable cost of treatment or disposal models. Some of the pertinent models are discussed in
TOTR total risk the following text.
VCwtk unit treatment or disposal cost for Peirce and Davidson, 1982 [5] applied a linear pro-
waste w at technology t at site k gramming technique to identify a cost-e€ective con®g-
WTDwtk waste quantity (of waste type w), pro- uration of transportation routes, transfer stations,
cessed at technology t, at node k processing facilities, and long term storage impound-
Wwrs waste quantity (of the waste type w), ments, for hazardous waste management. The Waste
traveling between the nodes r and s Resource Allocation Program (WRAP) developed by
w waste type, US EPA was used for analysis of di€erent options.
ytk 0±1 variable which represents the pre- However, their model formulation was a partial
sence or absence of the treatment or description of the hazardous waste management
disposal technology t at the site k (HWM) problem as it addressed only the identi®cation
zwtk 0±1 variable which represents the pre- of routes for given sites of waste treatment and speci®ed
sence or absence of the waste type w waste treatment technologies.
being processed at the treatment or Jennings and Scholar, 1984 [6] formulated the regio-
disposal technology t at the site k. nal hazardous waste management system as a transpor-
tation routing problem. Sources were assumed to
generate multiple types of wastes.
or chemical ®xation. However, the chemical ®xation Using this model an optimal solution may be achieved
technology poses relatively less risk to the air environ- on the basis of either minimum cost or minimum risk.
ment but its residue generation factor (ratio of treatment Various options were analyzed using US EPA's WRAP.
 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451
In the example problem, the locations of treatment
facilities were pre-decided. Although the authors men-
tioned that the model can take care of multiple types of
waste, no explicit consideration was made for waste±
waste non-compatibility and waste±technology compat-
ibility in the formulation of the mathematical model.
Zografos and Samara, 1990 [7] provided a combined
location-routing model for hazardous waste transpor-
tation and disposal. They used a 0±1 integer linear pro-
gramming approach for the model formulation. This
model considers three objectives: (i) minimization of
transportation risk, (ii) minimization of travel time, and
(iii) minimization of disposal risk. They did not consider
multiple types of hazardous waste. ReVelle et al., 1991
[8] formulated a management model for spent nuclear
fuel. The model simultaneously identi®es the storage
facilities, assigns the generators to the identi®ed facil-
ities and chooses routes for shipments. Method of
shortest path, 0±1 integer mathematical programming
and the weighting method of multi-objective program-
ming were synthesized for the solution of the problem.
List and Mirchandani, 1991 [9] presented a model
useful in making routing decisions. The model can be
used for ®nding material or waste shipment paths as
well as for siting waste treatment facilities. They used
integer linear programming with a utility function
approach to deal with multiple objectives.
Stowers and Palekar, 1993 [11] developed a model
that selects the location of storage/ treatment facility
and transportation routes for a single type of hazardous
waste/material. They assumed that the facility can be
located anywhere in the region. However, in practice
only a few candidate sites will be available because of
the landuse pattern of the region.
Jacobs and Warmerdam, 1994 [10] formulated a lin-
ear programming based model for the simultaneous sit-
ing and routing of hazardous waste transport, storage,
and disposal operations for a single type of waste.
Peirce and Davidson, 1982 [5] Jennings and Scholar,
1984 [6] and Jacobs and Warmerdam, 1994 [10] modeled
cost with linear functions, that is, the cost of hazardous
waste treatment or disposal is dependent upon per unit
waste quantity processed at the facility. However, the
initial capital cost for installing any facility may sig-
ni®cantly in¯uence the siting decision. The models by
Zografos and Samara, 1990 [7], ReVelle et al., 1991 [8],
List and Mirchandani, 1991 [9], and Stowers and Pale-
kar, 1993 [10], are for a single type of hazardous waste
or hazardous material. Therefore, waste±waste non-
compatibility and waste±treatment technology compat-
ibility issues are not applicable.
2.1. Remarks on the existing models
A mathematical model which may be helpful in plan-
ning for a regional hazardous waste management system
443
must address the following practical considerations:
diverse characteristics of di€erent wastes; compatibility
between di€erent waste types; waste residue generated
from waste treatment facilities; formulation of the siting
problem using 0±1 decision variables; consideration of
multiple objectives (i.e., risk, cost, and/or joint function
of risk and cost). It is evident from the review of existing
models, that no single model incorporates all the above
mentioned practical considerations. The issue of `waste±
waste compatibility' and `jointly considering risk and
cost' are not addressed by any of them. Clearly, recog-
nizing and incorporating these issues would help in for-
mulating a more e€ective management model and thus
help in arriving at a better implementable solution.
3. Proposed model formulation
The regional network for hazardous waste management
consists of a number of nodes. The nodes may be the
sources generating di€erent types of hazardous wastes,
potential treatment facilities, or potential disposal facil-
ities. Nodes are connected to each other by means of
transportation routes. The hazardous wastes generated at
the sources must be carried to the appropriate treatment
facility. The treated waste residues are then transferred to
a disposal facility. The activities of transportation, treat-
ment, and ®nal disposal involve costs and they also pose
some risk to the environment. Thus, the problem is to
select an optimal con®guration of facilities for transpor-
tation, treatment, and disposal so that hazardous waste is
managed with minimum cost and minimum risk to the
environment. The model formulation starts with identi®-
cation of decision variables. The decision variables in this
case are, (i) waste quantities traveling on the transporta-
tion links, (ii) decision variables for the location of treat-
ment and disposal facilities, and (iii) waste quantities
being processed at the treatment or disposal facilities. The
®nal step is the formulation of mathematical equations for
the objectives and constraints. The objective/(s) can be
minimization of cost and/or minimization of risk. Satis-
faction of the constraints is essential for a solution to be
implementable. An example of a constraint is `the waste
quantity to be processed at a treatment or disposal facility
shall not exceed the allowable capacities of the respective
facility'. Next step is to develop a utility function in order
to ®nd a compromise solution for minimization of risk as
well as cost. The mathematical expressions for the various
objectives and constraints and assumptions made are as
follows.
The objectives addressed are:
. minimization of total cost, which includes treat-
ment and disposal costs (sum of the capital cost,
operation and maintenance cost of the treatment
and disposal facilities), and transportation cost;
444 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451
. minimization of total risk, which includes waste
treatment and disposal risk as well as risk involved
in waste transportation; and
. minimization of the composite objective function
consisting of cost as well as risk.
The problem is subjected to the following constraints:
. mass balance of wastes at each node (i.e. all gen-
erator nodes, all intermediate nodes, and all desti-
nation nodes);
. allowable capacities for treatment and disposal
technologies at speci®c sites;
. waste±treatment technology compatibility con-
straints; and
. waste±waste non-compatibility constraints.
3.1. Assumptions
. The region for which the planning for hazardous
waste management is to be done is divided into
source nodes, intermediate nodes, treatment
nodes, disposal nodes, and transportation links.
. The population impacted by a hazardous waste
management related activity is considered as an
attribute of the corresponding treatment node,
disposal node or transportation link.
. It is assumed that the objective functions are linear
or segmented linear in nature.
. The transportation costs are directly proportional
to the network distance used, with the constant of
proportionality being independent of the value of
the distance.
. The risk functions for hazardous waste transpor-
tation are directly proportional to the quantity of
waste being transported and the network distance
traversed.
3.2. Formulation of the objectives
3.2.1. Estimation of risk
Risk estimation involves identi®cation of factors
leading to an undesirable event (i.e. an accident), its
probability, and the assessment of the probable out-
comes of the undesirable event. It also involves the
quanti®cation of the consequences of the event. An
undesirable event in this context may be release of
hazardous wastes due to an accident during transporta-
tion or due to an accident that occurred during treat-
ment or disposal of the hazardous wastes. The
probability of occurrence of an accident within a speci®ed
period (usually 1 year) can be estimated based on either
historical data, or employing fault and event tree techni-
ques, (Environment Protection Authority of Victoria,
1985 [12]; Petts and Eduljee, 1994 [13]). The consequences
of the accident can be estimated based on the physical
and chemical properties of the hazardous waste
released, its quantity and the sensitivity of the exposed
environment to the accidental release. The hazard
potential for the wastes can be determined using a
ranking procedure such as the DARE technique (Klee,
1976 [14]) or Analytic Hierarchical Process (Saaty, 1980
[15]) based upon the characteristics of the wastes.
Once the potential undesirable events are identi®ed,
with their probabilities and consequences of hazardous
waste release to the environment estimated, the risk to
the environment may be quanti®ed by the following
expression:
Risk ˆ Probability of occurrence of the
hazardous release event† 1†
 Estimated consequences of the event†
For the present problem, total risk can be expressed
in terms of addition of risk due to transportation and
risk due to treatment and disposal [Eq. (2)].
TOTR ˆ RT ‡ RS 2†
Where, TOTR ˆ Total risk; RT ˆ Transportation risk
and RS ˆ Site risk.
Transportation risk for a link is a function of waste
quantity being transported through the link, hazard
potential of the waste, probability of accident on the
link and receptor population impacted in case of acci-
dent [Eq. (3)]. The total transportation risk is the sum-
mation of transportation risks on all the links.
X X
RT ˆ 12L w2W fWwrs  Hw  PRrs  Prs g 3†
Where, RT ˆ Transportation risk; Wwrs=waste quan-
tity (of the waste type w), traveling between the nodes r
and s; Hw ˆhazard potential of the waste type w,
including waste treatment residues; PRrs ˆprobability
of accident on the link l, joining nodes r and s;
Prs ˆpopulation impacted if accident occurs on the link
l, joining nodes r and s; and L ˆset of all the transpor-
tation links in the system. Site risk is a function of the
waste quantity being processed at the treatment or dis-
posal facility, hazard potential of the waste, probability
of accident at the facility, and receptor population
impacted in case of accident [Eq. (4)].
X X X
RS ˆ k2K t2T w2W fWTDwtk  Hw  PRtk  Ptk g
4†
Where, RS ˆsite risk; WTDwtk ˆwaste quantity (of
the waste type w), to be processed at site k using tech-
nology t; PRtk ˆprobability of accident at the site k due to
technology t; Ptk ˆpopulation impacted if accident occurs
at site k due to technology t. The above expressions of risk
 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451 445

[Eqs. (3) and (4)] are limited to the receptor population
in consideration, which is human population in the
present case. If information is available, then the equa-
tions can be extended to consider all types of receptors.
A possible extension is to use a representative popula-
tion, which may be the sum of the population of each
receptor multiplied by their relative importance in the
ecosystem.
3.2.2. Estimation of cost
The total cost of waste treatment or disposal (Fig. 1)
is assumed to consist of a ®xed cost (depending upon
the capacity) for installing the facility, and a variable
operational cost depending upon the quantity of the
waste being treated [Eq. (5)]. The cost of insurance
against any accident may be included with the unit costs
of treatment, disposal and transportation.
Where, TOTC ˆtotal cost.
3.3. Composite cost-risk utility function
To consider both risk and cost together in a single
objective function, a normalized composite utility func-
tion is proposed. As measures of risk and cost have dif-
ferent units of expression, it is not desirable to combine
them directly in a quasi-additive form (i.e. by giving them
weightings). The utility function, u is formulated as the
composite of weighted risk and cost utilities [Eq. (10)].
u ˆ Weighting to Risk
 Risk=Minimum achievable Risk†
10†
‡ Weighting to Cost
 Cost=Minimum achievable Cost†

TDC ˆ FC ‡ VC 5† The risk utility is calculated as the risk term divided

by minimum achievable risk and similarly the cost term
Where, TDC ˆtreatment or disposal cost; FC ˆ®xed is divided by minimum achievable cost to give the cost
cost of the treatment or disposal technology; and utility. Minimum achievable risk and minimum achiev-
VC ˆvariable cost of treatment or disposal. The treat- able cost can be obtained by solving the problem with
ment and disposal cost function can be formulated as respect to these objectives individually. Further, the cost
shown in Eqs. 6 and 7. and risk utilities are multiplied by respective weightings
X X  assigned by the decision maker. The sum of the weightings
FC ˆ k2K t2T FCtk  ytk 6† given to the risk and cost terms should be normalized, so

Where, FCtk ˆcapital or ®xed cost of the technology t

at the site k; and ytk ˆ 0ÿ1 variable which represents
the presence or absence of the treatment or disposal
technology t at the site k.
X X X
VC ˆ k2K t2T w2W fWTDwtk  VCwtk g 7†

Where, VCwtk ˆunit treatment or disposal cost for

waste w at technology t at site k, which also includes
cost of insurance against any accident.
Transportation cost is the function of the waste
quantity being transported, distance between the nodes,
and the unit cost of transportation [Eq. (8)].
X X
TRC ˆ l2L w2W fWwrs  Drs  TCw g 8†

Where, TRC ˆtransportation cost; Drs ˆlength of the

link l, joining nodes r and s (r and s represent any pair
of nodes); and TCw ˆunit transportation cost for the
waste type w, which also includes cost of insurance
against any accident; L ˆset of all the transportation
links in the system.
Total cost of the hazardous waste management system
includes cost of waste and waste-residue transportation,
waste treatment, and waste-residue disposal [Eq. (9)].

Fig. 1. (a):Typical cost function representing linear cost.(b): Typical

TOTC ˆ fTDC ‡ TRCg 9† cost function representing ®xed charge problem.
446 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451

that the addition will be equal to 1. The utility function WTDwtk ÿ Ctk  zwtk 40 for all k andt† 14†
proposed should be minimized, for the given constraints.
X
An examination of Eq. 10 shows that the minimum w2W fWTDwtk g4Ctk for all k and t† 15†
achievable value of the utility function is 1, and the value
would be higher if the objectives of minimization of risks X nX X 
and costs are not commensurate to each other. w2W i2I fWrki
ÿ Wrik g ‡ j2J Wrkj ÿ Wrjk
o
3.4. Formulation of the constraints ÿREStw  WTDwtk ˆ 0 for all k andt†
16†
3.4.1. Mass balance at the nodes
Mass balances of wastes, at all the generation nodes, Where, Wr ˆQuantity of waste residue; Ctk ˆCapacity
intermediate nodes (the junction nodes of the transpor- of technology t at node k; REStw ˆResidue generation
tation links), treatment nodes and disposal nodes are factor for waste type w at technology t; and zwtk ˆ 0ÿ1
formulated as follows. variable which represents the presence or absence of the
At the waste generation nodes the mass balance waste type w being processed at the treatment or disposal
between waste generation and waste handling is for- technology t at the site k.
mulated in Eq. (11). The equation states that all the
waste being generated at the node must be transported 3.4.2. Logical constraints for waste±waste and waste±
for treatment. technology compatibility conditions
X  X The waste±waste and waste±treatment technology
j2J Wwij ÿ Wwji ‡ k2K fWwik ÿ Wwki g compatibility constraints are necessary to be included in
order to avoid non-feasible solutions. An example is
ˆ Qwi for all i and w† 11† presented to illustrate the formulation of such logical
constraints.
Where, i ˆwaste generation node; j ˆintermediate Example: let us assume site k as the potential site for a
node; k ˆwaste treatment or disposal node; w ˆwaste technology t. There are three types of wastes (W1 , W2 ,
type; Wwrs ˆquantity of waste type w traveling between and W3 ) being generated in the region. All the three waste
the nodes r and s (where, r and s represent any pair of types are compatible with the technology t. The waste
nodes and can be replaced with i, j, or k), and types W1 and W3 are considered as compatible with each
Qwi ˆquantity of waste type w generated at node i. other (i.e. waste types W1 and W3 can be treated by the
At the intermediate nodes, the waste quantities arriv- same treatment technology). However, combination of
ing must be balanced with the waste quantities being waste types W1 ÿ W2 and W2 ÿ W3 are considered as
transported away from the intermediate node [Eq. (12)]. non-compatible (i.e. these combinations should not be
X  X  allowed at the same treatment technology).
i2I Wwji ÿ Wwij ‡ k2K Wwjk ÿ Wwkj If we use a 0±1 variable ytk to represent the presence
or absence of the technology t at the site k, and a 0±1
ˆ 0 for all j and w† 12† variable zwtk to represent the state of waste type w being
treated at technology t at site k, then the waste±waste
At a treatment or disposal node all the quantity of and waste±technology compatibility constraints may be
waste or waste residue coming in must be treated [Eqs formulated as follows.
(13) and (14)]. At a treatment or disposal node the
compatibility of the waste type with the technology is Logical conditions Logical constraint
checked using 0±1 variables (discussed later). The waste
quantities being processed should not exceed the capa- if either z111 or z211 or z311 ˆ 1 z111 ‡ z211 ‡ z311 ÿ y11 51
city of the treatment or disposal facility [Eq. (15)]. The
waste residue being generated at a treatment node must 17†
be sent to the disposal nodes [Eq. (16)].
then y11 ˆ 1 z111 ÿ y11 40 18†
X nX X 
w2W i2I fWwki ÿ Wwik g ‡ j2J Wwkj ÿ Wwjk
z211 ÿ y11 40 19†
o
‡WTDwtk ˆ 0 for all k and t†
z311 ÿ y11 40 20†
13†
eitherz111 ˆ 1; or z211 ˆ 1 z111 ‡ Z211 41 21†
Where, WTDwtk ˆwaste quantity (of the waste type w),
treated or disposed at technology t, at node k. either z211 ˆ 1; or z311 ˆ 1; z211 ‡ z311 41 22†
 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451 447

4. Example application potential of wastes are given in Table 1. The treatment

options available are chemical-®xation/solidi®cation
The purpose of this example problem is to perform technology and incineration technology. All the three
sensitivity analysis in order to study the e€ect of change types of wastes are compatible to the chemical-®xation/
in the preferences of the objectives in the utility function solidi®cation technology, whereas the incineration tech-
and the weightings given to the objectives. nology can be used for treatment of pesticide industry
waste and petrochemical waste. Waste±waste compat-
4.1. Description of the example problem ibility information is given in Table 2.
Information about waste±technology compatibility,
The network consists of 16 nodes, out of which six cost and risk coecients, residue generation factors, and
nodes are waste generators, two nodes represent poten- capacities of the treatment and disposal technologies at
tial treatment sites, two nodes are potential disposal the di€erent sites are included in Table 3. Information
sites and the remaining six nodes are intermediate about disposal facilities is included in Table 4.
nodes. The network consists of 20 links. Of the six gen-
eration nodes, one is assumed to generate petrochemical
industry waste at the rate of 6000 t/year, two are Table 1
Unit cost of transportation and hazard potential of the wastes
assumed to generate waste from pesticide industries at
the rate of 800 t/year and 3200 t/year, the remaining Type of waste Unit cost of Hazard
three nodes are assumed to generate metal plating waste transportation potentiala
at the rate of 1800, 1200 and 600 t/year. ($/t/km)
Con®guration of the network is shown in Fig. 2. Metal plating waste 4.0 0.25
Waste quantities being generated at the di€erent nodes, Petrochemical waste 5.5 0.30
lengths of the network links, risk potential and popula- Pesticides waste 5.0 0.35
Waste residues 2.0 0.10
tion along the links, etc., are shown in the ®gure.
Hazard potential of the wastes, unit cost of wastes a
Hazard potential of wastes, and waste residues are calculated
transportation and the information about hazard using the Analytic Hierarchical Process (Saaty, 1980 [15]).

Fig. 2. Con®guration of the example problem.

448 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451

4.2. Results and discussion
The example problem has been solved for the follow-
ing ®ve sets of joint functions of cost and risk: (a)
minimization of risk, which has been achieved by
assigning zero weighting to cost; (b) weighting to risk :
0.7 and weighting to cost : 0.3; (c) weighting to risk : 0.5
and weighting to cost : 0.5; (d) weighting to risk : 0.3
and weighting to cost : 0.7; (e) minimization of cost,
which has been achieved by assigning zero weighting to
risk. Fig. 3 (a±e) show the results obtained for various
combinations of weighting given to risk and cost. The
®gures show the selected treatment technologies, dis-
posal sites and waste quantities being transported on
various routes. Relationship between cost and risk is
shown in Fig. 4 and Table 5. Nodes 2 and 15 have been
chosen for incineration and solidi®cation/chemical ®xa-
tion technologies, respectively, for the cases ``a''±``d'',
whereas node 2 is chosen for solidi®cation/chemical
®xation and node 15 is chosen for incineration in case of
Table 2
Waste±waste non-compatibility information
Waste types
Metal plating waste and petrochemical waste
Metal plating waste and pesticides waste
Petrochemical waste and pesticides waste
``e''. Nodes 1 and 13 have been chosen for land®ll in the
cases of ``a'' and ``b'', whereas, only one node has been
selected as the weighting to cost is 0.5 and more. Fig. 3
(a±e) shows that the transportation routes vary sig-
ni®cantly for di€erent cases. Fig. 4 and Table 5 shows
that risk and cost has an inverse relationship. A com-
promise solution can be obtained by judiciously choos-
ing the weightings to cost and risk.
The observations can be summarized as follows:
. total cost and total risk of the system have inverse
relationships, i.e. minimization of cost and mini-
mization of risk are con¯icting objectives. How-
ever, the extent of the inverse relationship would
depend upon the con®guration of the network,
other attributes of the network like population
a€ected, probability of accident on the link etc.,
and the cost-risk data.
. Solution for minimum cost and minimum risk may
di€er in technologies associated with the sites,
allocation of the wastes to the technologies, rout-
ing of the hazardous wastes and residues, and the
choice of the land®ll sites.
. Ideally waste treatment facilities and disposal facil-
Remark ity should be at the same site unless demanded by
Non-compatible site speci®c constraints. Availability of an attached
Compatible
Non-compatible
(or close by) land®ll site in¯uences the locational
decision of the treatment/disposal technologies.

Table 3
Details of treatment facilities

Node Technology Residue Capacity Fixed Variable Population Risk

generation of the Costa cost at risk probabilityb
factor technology ($/yr) ($/tons)a (x103) (x10ÿ6)
(t/yr)

Metal plating Pesticides Petrochemical

2 and Solidi®cation 1.3 14,000 60,000 25 25 30 4 6

15 Incineration 0.2 10,000 80,000 xc 30 20 4 7
a
Sources of cost data range: [16,17,18,19].
b
Sources of risk probability range: [12].
c
x indicates waste type and technology are non-compatible.

Table 4
Details of disposal facilities

Node Technology Capacity Fixed Variable Population Risk

of the costa costa at risk probabilityb
technology ($/year) ($/ton) (x103) (x10ÿ6)
(tons/year)

1 and 13 Land®ll 18,000 50,000 15 4 5

a
Sources of cost data range: [16,17,18,19].
b
Sources of risk probability range: [12].
 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451 449

Fig. 3. E€ect of variation in weightings to cost and risk on the solution of the example problem.

Technologies generating more residues should be 5. Model applications

closer to the land®ll site, so that waste residue gen-
erated need not be transported longer distances.
The observations noted above may change on a case to
case basis, however, the purpose of solving the example
problem is to show the capabilities of the proposed model
as a tool for analyzing various management options.
An improved formulation of the integrated loca-
tional-allocation problem to implement regional hazar-
dous waste management planning is presented here.
This formulation allows one to incorporate practical
issues like unique characteristics of the hazardous
wastes re¯ecting on waste±waste, waste±technology
450 A.K. Nema, S.K. Gupta / Waste Management 19 (1999) 441±451

objective function. Capacities of treatment and disposal

facilities have been re¯ected in Eq. (15). One can plan to
have a larger facility at the expense of more ®xed cost
and vice versa. Waste±waste and waste±treatment tech-
nology compatibility constraints have been re¯ected in
Eq. (17)±(22). The cost and risk related information
requirement has been kept to a minimum in order to
avoid the excessive cost and time involved in data col-
lection. The proposed model can be solved using any
integer linear Programming solution package. Although
no e€ort is made to re®ne cost and risk analyses to the
point where they can be used to produce an accurate
case speci®c situation, the examples illustrate the
potential usefulness of the model. The DARE technique
and AHP are suggested as a surrogate for a thorough
risk evaluation. However, a better method can be used if
found more appropriate. Realistic cost data are becom-
ing available as more and more environmental control
agencies as well as industries have started critically
examining the current waste management practices and
seeking for regional treatment/ disposal facilities.
Fig. 4. Relationship between cost and risk.

Table 5 References
Results of example problem
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