Waste Management under Emergency Conditions: Life-Cycle Multicriteria Analysis as Decision Support System

Abstract

Waste management under emergency conditions requires proper handling. The sudden closure of a strategic final disposal site can result in serious environmental and health hazards which need to be addressed. Furthermore, this situation requires the identification of new sites to be used for waste disposal. This study analysed the case-study of Genoa, Northern Italy, following the closure of the Scarpino landfill previously dedicated to the disposal of waste generated in this municipality. A multi-objective tool was developed and applied from long-term planning to day-to-day scheduling. A sensitivity analysis was performed on the basis of collected waste volumes, in order to study the utilization and actual rate of fulfilling of the plants according to the leading objective function. Considering all of the objective functions, the emissions optimization shows better behaviour in terms of simultaneous global accomplishment of each function. In this context, the introduction of a decision support system for waste management shows its usefulness in setting and effectively pursuing long-term targets in term of total costs, emissions generated by waste transport, and exploitation of single plants from a sustainability perspective.