A GREY HOP, SKIP, AND JUMP APPROACH - GENERATING ALTERNATIVES FOR EXPANSION PLANNING OF WASTE MANAGEMENT FACILITIES

A grey hop, skip, and jump (GHSJ) approach is developed and applied to the area of municipal solid waste management planning. The method imp roves upon existing modelling to generate alternative approaches by al lowing uncertain information to be effectively communicated into the o ptimization process and resulting solutions. Feasible decision alterna tives can be generated through interpretation of the GHSJ solutions, w hich are capable of reflecting potential system condition variations c aused by the existence of input uncertainties. Results from a hypothet ical case study indicate that useful solutions for the expansion plann ing of waste management facilities can be generated. The decision alte rnatives obtained from the GHSJ solutions may be interpreted and analy zed to internalize environmental-economic tradeoffs, which may be of i nterest to solid waste decision makers faced with difficult and contro versial choices.