A Factorial Dual-Interval Programming Approach for Planning Municipal Waste Management Systems

In this study, a factorial dual-interval programming (FDIP) approach is proposed through integrating factorial analysis and dual-interval linear programming into a general framework. The developed FDIP approach can handle uncertainties (i.e., single-interval and dual-interval) that exist in the left-hand side and right-hand side of the system objective function and in the associated constraints. Moreover, it has the advantages in identifying significant parameters along with their joint effects on the system outputs. A case study of municipal solid waste (MSW) management is adopted to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. Reasonable results have been generated for the waste flow allocation schemes with minimized system costs; impact factors and their interactive effects have been identified and analyzed for the lower bound and upper bound of the system outputs under various scenarios. It is indicated that the effect of operational costs of the waste-to-energy (WTE) facility during the first period is most influential and positive to the system costs; such operation costs have a slightly larger effect on the lower bound of the system costs than that on the upper bound of the system costs, providing valuable information when it comes to decision making.