Municipal solid waste management and energy production: A multi-objective optimization approach to incineration and biogas waste-to-energy supply chain

Nowadays, the management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) regarding its harmful impacts, such as acid compounds, carbon dioxide, and sludge waste, on the environment has become prominent. This paper introduces a supply chain model using simultaneously-two power station types, including biogas and incineration, one separation center, and one waste collection center over some districts of one urban region. MSW is collected throughout the town via transportation programming, transferred to the center of collection/separation, and further separated regarding low and high humidity, in which dry waste is assigned to the incineration center and the wet waste to the biogas one. Finally, the waste is converted to electricity and sold to the market. A case study from 11 districts located in Tehran, Iran used to obtain the optimal economic and environmental benefits. Large instance cases could be obtained via a hybrid method (GAs + Gams). A sensitivity analysis is done to minimize the harmful environmental impacts and maximize the economic benefits. Results indicate that the destructive effects of the acid compounds are considerably higher than both the carbon dioxide and the waste sludge. Moreover, practical costs in both power stations have insensitive impacts on the economic objective of the supply chain.