Containerisation of the selective collection of light packaging waste material: The case of small cities in advanced economies

This article concerns the development of a methodology aimed at optimising the location and type of containers used for the collection of light packaging waste material in small cities. It focuses on a municipality of 50,000 inhabitants located in the Community of Madrid (Spain) which has seen the provision of better service, covering 97% of the population. It has led to an improvement in the quality of the material deposited in the containers, which has increased from 25% to 70% through this system and through changing to 2700 litre igloo-style containers. The methodology used was based on a Geographic Information System which handled different sets of information, such as street directories, the number of inhabitants, current location of the containers and radius of coverage. The evaluation of the current and potential collection points was effected by means of an expert system and the application of an analysis using buffers with radii of influence of 50, 100, 150 and 200 m, generating concentric circles around each proposed point, obtaining optimum coverage at 150 m.