Analyse de la performance environnementale d’un réseau décentralisé des centres de conditionnement de matières résiduelles : étude de cas à la ville de Montréal

Abstract

The generation of municipal solid waste grows each year. Centralized waste treatment infrastructures dispatch more trucks to collect the growing demand, which gives more pressure on the road network and greenhouse gas emissions. To palliate these limitations, the decentralized approach creates a network of distributed waste treatment facilities across a territory. This research project studies the impact of the integration of decentralization on waste collection. Specifically, the methodology models waste generation, collection routes and localization of waste conditioning centers. This approach is applied to a case study in Montreal for a polyethylene terephthalate (PET; no.1 plastic) chain. For each considered decentralization scenario (number of waste conditioning centers deployed), the case study computes two performance indicators: costs and greenhouse gas emissions. A reference scenario allows the comparison of the considered scenarios. The results show that, for the case study, decentralization reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 20,3 % and operation costs by 8,04 %. However, the investment costs for the new infrastructure remain the biggest financial obstacle. These costs can represent up to 89,7 % of the expenses in a decentralized context. Nonetheless, decentralization grows the flexibility of waste collection under a changing demand. The mileage per ton has reduced by 35,3 % and the average tonnage by trip has reduced by 12,8 %. Furthermore, in the case study, waste collection has been applied on a territory that generated 1,16 kt of recyclable waste, distributed over 22 326 road sections. In a larger perspective, the developed methodology remains generic and applicable to other territories or business cases. It can be used to consider other decisions on waste management such as mutualization of infrastructure and on-demand collection.

Date	17 Jul 2023
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Mathias Glaus (Supervisor)