Economic and environmental concerns in planning recyclable waste collection systems

•A problem not yet addressed in the literature is studied-the multi-product, MDVRP.•Economic and environmental concerns are taken into account.•The problem was model through a MILP formulation with two objective functions.•An effective decomposition solution method is developed.•The model is applied to the solution of a real case resulting in significant savings.

This paper addresses the planning of recyclable waste collection systems while accounting for economic and environmental concerns. Service areas and vehicle routes are defined for logistics networks with multiple depots where different products are collected. The problem is modeled as a multi-product, multi-depot vehicle routing problem with two objective functions: distance and CO2 emissions minimization. A decomposition solution method is developed and applied to a real case study. Six scenarios regarding different service areas and objective functions are studied. Savings of up to 22% in distance and 27% in CO2 emissions are achieved, exceeding economic and environmental goals.