Application of Geographical Information System (GIS) in optimisation of waste collection for Alandur Municipality in South Chennai, India

The population outburst in urban areas had resulted in a substantial increase in the generation of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and challenged with waste management. Issam et al. (2007) pointed out that most of the cities which is burning the waste in open dumps lacks in proper health and safety requirements. Alandur which is under Alandur Municipal Corporation (AMC) generate nearly 80 MT MSW every day. Due to improper institutional mechanism for collection and conveyance of waste, an engineered design for storage, collection and conveyance using GIS incorporating route optimisation had been discussed in this paper.