A novel methodology for designing a household waste collection system for insular zones

• The proposed model optimizes the design of insular household waste collection system.
• The model integrates collection site selection, visit schedule, and routing decisions.
• The model is successful in dealing with real world instances in the south of Chile.
• The use of a compacting machine on a barge is efficient for waste transportation.
• Full/empty bin transportation on board inefficiently uses the capacity of the barge.

This paper addresses the problem of designing a household waste collection system for rural insular areas using a barge for transportation, based on a novel mixed integer programming model that simultaneously integrates decisions of waste collection sites selection within the islands to be served, visit schedule for each selected collection site, and multi-period vehicle routing. An application to a real-world instance consisting of small rural islands located in the south of Chile shows the effectiveness and complexity of the model, along with the advantages of using a waste compactor instead of transporting the waste using bins onboard a barge.