Logistics network design to reuse second-hand household appliances for charities

Abstract

Abstract The increased urban population, lifestyle change, diet change, as well as increased welfare level and life standards in urban societies have caused huge amount of solid waste in metropolitan cities. Solid waste process management in metropolitan cities is currently one of the significant problems in developing countries. Most of the studies in the literature are concentrated on reverse logistics for one type of product for recovery or remanufacturing process, and far too little attention has been paid to a reuse distribution network through charities. In this study, a framework is suggested to reuse the variety of household appliances to reduce municipal solid waste and help the low-income families. A single-objective mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model with uncertainty in the number of the products used by consumers is presented to optimize the reverse logistics network. The designed logistic network considered different recycling options such as recycling and repair and the centers called charity. In order to show the functionality of the presented model, a numerical example is solved by GAMS software to obtain the network structure with the optimum cost. The results confirm the applicability of the model by offering a great number of used products that can be transported and reused by affordable cost.