A multiobjective programming model for locating treatment sites and routing hazardous wastes

In this paper, a multiobjective model for locating disposal or treatment facilities and transporting hazardous waste along the links of a transportation network are presented. Some of the nodes of this network may be population centres generating hazardous waste which must be transported to the treatment facilities. Four objectives are considered: (1) minimisation of total operating cost, (2) minimisation of total perceived risk, (3) equitable distribution of risk among population centres and (4) equitable distribution of the disutility caused by the operation of the treatment facilities. A goal programming model to solve the problem is developed and a small hypothetical example is presented to illustrate how penalty functions can be used to obtain more satisfactory solutions in real life applications.