Optimal Configuration and Planning of the Reverse Supply Chain of Empty Pesticide Containers

Abstract

The optimal design, configuration, and operation of empty pesticide container (EPC) collection networks has enormous environmental, economic and legal relevance, especially in countries that are massive grain producers. To address this problem, this contribution introduces two alternative mixed integer-linear programming (MILP) multiperiod deterministic formulations. Numerous scenarios from a real-life case study involving the recovery of glyphosate containers and linked to a region in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, have been resolved and analyzed in depth. They allowed testing the expressivity, computational performance, and scalability of the three solution approaches, as well as their sensitivity to certain parameter variations. It can be concluded that the proposals are appropriate decision-making tools that can be employed in different contexts: (i) the network must be established from scratch; (ii) there are already some existing facilities; (iii) the network is fully operational, but needs to be re-evaluated.