An optimal sequence of landfills in municipal solid waste management

Abstract

Given that landfills are depletable and replaceable resources, the right approach, when dealing with landfill management, is that of designing an optimal sequence of landfills rather than every single landfill separately. In this paper we use Optimal Control models, with mixed elements of both continuous and discrete time problems, to determine an optimal sequence of landfills, as regarding their capacity and lifetime. The resulting optimization problems involve dividing a time horizon of planning into subintervals the length of which has to be decided. In each of the subintervals some costs, the amount of which depends on the value of the decision variables, have to be borne. The obtruned results are useful for other economic problems such as private an public investrnents, consumption decisions on durable goods, etc.