HEURISTIC ALGORITHM TO LOCATE SOLID-WASTE DISPOSAL SITE

Choosing a site for disposal of solid waste is a difficult problem for many cities. Recent interest in public facilities has led to the deve lopment of several modeling approaches in facilities location. A commo n planning problem is to locate new facilities to maximize service to an existing population. This decision is based on distance; cost; and environmental, social and political issues. The decision of where to l ocate a solid-waste facility can be simplified if the costs associated with any location can be estimated and the minimum-cost location tech nique based on map distances. The technique is easy to use and underst and and reduces the number of locations to consider. The exact costs a re situation dependent and are not covered in this paper. An example o f the application of this methodology is given. This heuristic techniq ue can also be applied to other facility location problems for quick a nd feasible solution.