Locating a Landfill with Vector Optimization

Municipal solid waste (a.k.a. garbage) is a major concern in developed and developing countries alike. Garbage generation has been increasing for a long time and has now (2018 data) reached 5.69 lbs. per capita per day (United States), 4.23 lbs. (France), 2.87 lbs. (Saudi Arabia), 2.25 lbs. (China) as per Statista (Daily Municipal Solid Waste Generation Per Capita Worldwide in 2018, by Select Country, 2020a). In Chile, the OECD (Data: Municipal Waste, 2017) reports a daily per-capita generation of 2.66 lbs. In most countries, a large proportion of the garbage is landfilled. The number of landfills per capita differs greatly between countries. For instance, in 2002, there were 1775 landfills in Germany (via How many landfills are there, 2014), which, in conjunction with its population of 83,784,000 (as per Worldometer, Countries in the World by Population, 2020) results in 47,200 people per landfill, while Italy’s 642 landfill serve 60,460,000 people, i.e., 91,175 people per landfill, all the way to China’s 654 landfills (A rubbish story, 2019), which translates to 2.2 million people per landfill. However, rather than measuring the number of people per landfill, a (probably) more meaningful number of would be the landfill area required per capita, certainly in densely populated countries, in which space is at a premium. Pertinent references are BBC News (A Rubbish Story, 2019) and Rubbish Prohibited (How many landfills are there?, 2014).