The article considers the optimization of a transport and production problem in relation to medical waste processing. For an existing network of waste collection points and processing plants, according to the adopted algorithm, the cost-optimal distribution of transport tasks to appropriate incinerators must be determined. It is assumed that the functions defining processing costs are second-degree polynomials. To solve the problem, a program written in the MatLab environment based on the marginal cost equalization algorithm (WKK) was used.INTRODUCTION
Waste includes all objects and solid substances, as well as liquid substances that are not sewage, resulting from industrial, economic, or human activity and are useless at the place or time they were created. The classification of waste according to the Regulation of the Minister of the Environment of September 27, 2001, on the waste catalog (Journal of Laws No. 112, item 1206) classifies them into 20 groups depending on their source. Group 18 includes medical and veterinary waste, which is the subject of the exemplification of the method proposed in the article.
As of 2010, a total of 137 million Mg of waste was generated in Poland, of which 125 million Mg was industrial waste and 12 million Mg was municipal waste. It is estimated (data changes quite dynamically, but they are not the subject of this study) that about 86.6% of municipal waste in Poland goes to landfills, more than 10% is selectively collected and sorted (6.8% and 3.3% respectively), and only 3.2% is disposed of biologically and thermally. For comparison, in the European Union countries (2008), out of about 260 million Mg of municipal waste, only 48% goes to landfills, and about 20% of waste is incinerated.
It is worth noting that the share of waste disposed of through incineration varies significantly. For example, Denmark (54%), Sweden (45%), France (34%), and Germany (22%) incinerate the most, but Spain incinerates only 7%, Great Britain 8%, Finland 9%, and Austria 10%.
A good indicator of the scale of the municipal waste problem is the amount of waste “generated” by one inhabitant: in Poland, this number is 320 kg, while the EU average is about 700 kilograms. (…)
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Source: Logistyka Magazine 4/2011