Collaborative Reverse Logistics Network for Infectious Medical Waste Management during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

The development of COVID-19 in China has gradually become normalized; thus, the prevention and control of the pandemic has encountered new problems: the amount of infectious medical waste (IMW) has increased sharply; the location of outbreaks are highly unpredictable; and the pandemic occurs everywhere. Thus, it is vital to design an effective IMW reverse logistics network to cope with these problems. This paper firstly introduces mobile processing centers (MPCs) into an IMW reverse logistics network for resource-saving, quick response, and the sufficient capacity of processing centers. Then, a multi-participant-based (public central hospitals, disposal institutions, the logistics providers, and the government) collaborative location and a routing optimization model for IMW reverse logistics are built from an economic, environmental perspective. An augmented ε-constraint method is developed to solve this proposed model. Through a case study in Chongqing, it is found that for uncertain outbreak situations, fixed processing centers (FPCs) and MPCs can form better disposal strategies. MPC can expand the processing capacity flexibly in response to the sudden increase in IMW. The results demonstrate good performance in reduction in cost and infection risk, which could greatly support the decision making of IMW management for the government in the pandemic prevention and control.

The IoT-enabled sustainable reverse supply chain for COVID-19 Pandemic Wastes (CPW)

“…The developed MILP concentrated on vaccination waste management more than other medical wastes. Luo and Liao (2022) conceptualized RSC for the COVID-19 outbreak by designing a multi-component routing-location optimization model. Also, they firstly armed the distribution processes by mobile processing centers to improve the network’s agility.…”

Reverse Logistics Network Design for Medical Waste Disposal under the Scenario of Uncertain Proposal Demand

“…Many experts study the integrated location-routing problem in medical waste logistics from various perspectives such as economic, environmental, and multiple time periods. These include location-routing models for medical waste [6], dual-level equilibrium location-allocation optimization models [4], and multi-objective programming models [7] to comprehensively address decisions related to the location selection and transportation of medical waste disposal facilities. However, since medical waste contains tissues containing pathogenic microorganisms such as a patient's vomit and body fluids, as well as disposable instruments, needles, syringes, surgical blades, syringes, and other wastes used in operating theatres, emergency rooms, and injection rooms, etc., which have a certain degree of viral transmissibility, and these wastes are prone to cause environmental contamination and the spread of pathogens in the reverse logistic activities, the traditional optimization methods are only concerned with the minimization of the costs, which are not able to satisfy the current demand for the disposal of medical wastes.…”

A Multi-Objective Optimization Model for Multi-Facility Decisions of Infectious Waste Transshipment and Disposal

“…Farrokhi-Asl et al [15] quantified health and environmental impacts as the number of people who might be impacted by the hazardous waste, and the total emission incurred from the distance travelled and technology deployed. Luo and Liao [23] optimized locations and routing of mobile medical waste collection units by considering both economic and environmental impacts. Entezaminia et al [13] assessed several environmental criteria using scores for those which they wanted to minimize.…”

“…Recently, the problem has been extended to consider several locations of the needed facilities at the same time. This multi-facility location problem has been modelled in many applications, such as in determining collection and recycling centers in green supply chain by Entezaminia et al [13], deciding the locations of explosive waste recycling depots by Zhao and Zhu [22], and locating proper sites for mobile infectious waste processing centers by Luo and Liao [23]. Each of these studies also considers two competing objectives simultaneously in optimizing their problems.…”