A feasibility study for the locations of waste transfer stations in urban centers: a case study on the city of Nashik, India

Rapid population growth and high rate of urbanization make municipal solid waste management a challenging task for municipalities due to the inadequacy of infrastructural services. Taking this into consideration, this paper proposes an approach for finding economically optimal locations and feasibility demonstration of a municipal solid waste management infrastructure unit, i.e. waste transfer stations. This analytical approach consists of two basic elements: (i) a mathematical model to optimize overall cost for municipal solid waste management; and (ii) geographical information system tools to create a data inventory for the mathematical model. The novelty of the proposed model includes heterogeneity in data compilation, on-road measurements of distances and strategic allocation of transfer stations. Also, to assess waste load estimation more precisely, analyzing the impacts of heterogeneity in data and on-road distances on model, three distinct cases have been considered. Further, the developed approach has been demonstrated on the city of Nashik, India. The mathematical model for Nashik city is written in a mathematical programming language AMPL and the solutions have been obtained using KNITRO solver. Optimization model selects three best locations out of eight potential locations with the optimum capacity of 200 TPD. Furthermore, the assessment of model's behavior under uncertainty has been performed with a comprehensive sensitivity analysis for further improvements. The integrity of all components in this study produces a generic framework for helping municipal officials and researchers for development of a municipal solid waste management system with transfer stations in an economically optimal manner.