Medical waste management during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak: A mathematical programming model

Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) directly impacts community health and environmental degradation; therefore, the management of MSW is crucial. Medical waste is a specific type of MSW which is generally divided into two categories: infectious and non-infectious. Wastes generated by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are classified among infectious medical wastes; moreover, these wastes are hazardous because they threaten the environment and living organisms if they are not appropriately managed. This paper develops a bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model for medical waste management during the COVID-19 outbreak. The proposed model minimizes the total costs and risks, simultaneously, of the population’s exposure to pollution. This paper considers some realistic assumptions for the first time, including location-routing problem, time window-based green vehicle routing problem, vehicles scheduling, vehicles failure, split delivery, population risk, and load-dependent fuel consumption to manage both infectious and non-infectious medical waste. We apply a fuzzy goal programming approach for solving the proposed bi-objective model, and the efficiency of the proposed model and solution approach is assessed using data related to 13 nodes of medical waste production in a location west of Tehran.

Vehicle Routing Optimization for Pandemic Containment: A Systematic Review on Applications and Solution Approaches

“…Regarding waste disposal, seven papers discussed the infectious waste (e.g., medical waste) collection activities during a pandemic scenario. These articles mainly explored various ways to mitigate the transmission risk presented by infectious medical waste, including the use of temporary facilities [74,77,78,81] and outsourcing [105].…”

“…Notably, three out of fourteen articles that considered health-related factors addressed the problem of waste collection [77,78,105]. A common assumption in these studies is that minimizing the total population exposed during medical waste transportation can reduce the risk of infection, thus improving public health.…”

Medical Waste Treatment Technologies for Energy, Fuels, and Materials Production: A Review

“…Govindan et al [98] developed a bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming software for MWM during the COVID-19 outbreak by simultaneously minimizing the total costs and risks of exposure of the population to contamination. They included the locationrouting problem, the vehicle scheduling/failure, the time window-based green vehicle routing problem, the split delivery, the people risk, and the load-dependent consumption of the fuel to process both infectious and non-infectious MW.…”

“…They developed a linear programming model to minimize the total costs, the transportation risks, the infectious MWT risks and the maximum uncollected MW in healthcare facilities. Similarly, Govindan et al [98] developed a bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model for MWM during the COVID-19 pandemic, by simultaneously minimizing the total costs and of the population's exposure to pollution risks. Additionally, He et al [14] used the operational flow of MW to optimize the automated MW sorting system problem, using a mixed-integer programming model for the MW assignment, presorting stations, and automated guided vehicles optimization.…”

Implementation of environmental cost accounting during the COVID-19 pandemic in medical waste management

“…This shows that they still pay attention to environmental aspects by managing as much as possible even in very urgent situations. Wangaya Hospital, specifically on the aspect of internal failure costs, has implemented the three pillars of sustainable development (Govindan et al, 2021;Zamparas et al, 2019).…”