Evaluating operating models and urbanism for transportation operations of circular reuse platforms

Abstract

Containers and packages contribute to about 28 % of more than 292 million tons of municipalsolid waste. Although a shift from single-use to reuse models seems inevitable for more sustainable packaging, there are economic and environmental aspects of reusables operations that are yet to be investigated. In this paper, we address the transportation operations of reusables (delivery of full packages and picking up empty ones) while accounting for the possibility of prioritizing serving deliveries prior to pickups. We model this problem as the Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls and showcase a heuristic solution approach on two real-world transportation networks that are representative of urban and rural areas. We also present an analysis of the transportation cost and CO2 emission under a variety of factors that provides relevant insights for decision makers that could help them to find solutions in adopting reusable packaging models.