Least‐Cost Scheduling of Solid Waste Recycling

The expense and controversy of siting new landfills and solid waste incinerators have brought new urgency to efforts to extend the life of existing landfills. The most common approach taken has been to encourage the recycling of some wastes by households and businesses. However, recycling is not costless, and it is unlikely that the costs of all possible recycling efforts are worthwhile in terms of deferring landfill closure and replacement costs. This paper develops a simple linear programming method for evaluating and scheduling a given set of recycling measures in this context. The method also determines the least‐cost landfill lifetime.