Papers Related to Cost-Environment Tradeoffs in

Location and Transportation of Solid and Hazardous Waste

Wyman, Max M. and Michael Kuby. 1996. Proactive Optimization: A Multiobjective Technology Location Model for Designing Toxic Waste Systems. Location Science 3:167–185. (This paper compares solar and incinerator technologies for breaking down toxic waste in the Phoenix area. The solar technology uses photons of certain wavelengths to cleave the chemical bonds in toxic waste, rather than the heat from solar energy. The model optimized the location of facilities and transportation of waste according to three objectives: cost (processing and transport), risk (processing and transport), and disequity. We found that the solar technology can reduce cost, risk, and disequity compared with incinerators, and that these benefits may not have been obvious until the solar technology was simulated in a dense urban setting.

Wyman, Max M. and Michael Kuby. 1995. Turning the Tables: Using Location Science to Specify Technology Rather Than Using Technology to Constrain Location. INFOR–The Canadian Journal of Operational Research and Information Processing 33:118–122. (This is a commentary advocating the importance of simultaneous optimization of technology choice and spatial networks. It argues that new technology cannot be adequately studied just based on its laboratory performance. One needs to model how it will perform in a spatial setting to fully understand its potential costs and benefits.)

Rahman, Mushtaq and Michael Kuby. 1995. A Multiobjective Model for Locating Solid Waste Transfer Facilities Using an Empirical Distance-Based Opposition Function. INFOR–The Canadian Journal of Operational Research and Information Processing 33:34–49. (This paper incorporates the distance-decay curves described in the 1992 paper below into a multiobjective model for locating solid waste transfer stations for studying the tradeoffs between minimizing costs and minimizing public opposition.)

Rahman, Mushtaq, A. Essam Radwan, Jonathan Upchurch, and Michael Kuby. 1992. Modeling Spatial Impacts of Siting a NIMBY Facility. Transportation Research Record 1359:133–140. (This paper reports on a survey of public attitudes towards proposed solid waste transfer stations in Phoenix, and fits logit models to the results to estimate a distance-decay relationship for public opposition to the facilities.

Kuby, Michael J. 1987. Programming Models for Facility Dispersion: the p-Dispersion and Maxisum Dispersion Problems. Geographical Analysis 19:315–329. (The p-dispersion problem aims to maximize the minimum separation distance among a set of facilities. It is one way to define the optimal “spreading out” of a set of facilities. This paper was the first mixed-integer formulation of the discrete version of this problem. Although it has obvious applications to equity situations or hazardous facilities that pose a chain-reaction risk to each other, I initially developed this model to force central places to spread out in my dissertation on modeling central place theory.