Cloud Based Solid Waste Transportation Optimisation for Energy Conversion

Abstract

Effective and efficient management of solid waste is an incessantly growing and the obdurate problem of global and regional levels particularly for local authorities in urban centers. Several processes such as monitoring, collection, transporting, processing, recycling, and disposal are involved that requires immediate attention owing to economic and environmental concerns. Expressly the gathering and moving of solid waste to the energy production/recycling/ending destination has been prioritized higher because of its significant share of the total waste management budget. All these processes involve the mammoth amount of data and their manipulation for real-time use. Hence, this paper proposes a cloud based algorithm to optimize the transportation cost of solid waste from transfer stations to the final dumping stations subject to transfer vehicle constraints. The solid waste transportation dispatching is a direct analytical approach that provides three options: (i) economic dispatch option provides a minimum operating cost of solid waste transfer and its corresponding emission; (ii) emission dispatch option provides a minimum vehicle emission for the same quantity of the solid waste transferred and its corresponding operating cost of transfer and finally (iii) an environmentally friendly economic transfer of solid waste. The efficacy of the algorithm has been shown with an enduring solid waste management system in the Indian context.Keywords: Cloud, economic and environmental concerns, solid waste transportationJEL Classifications: B41, C61, C88, R41