On the integration of planning and environmental impact assessment for a WEEE transportation network – A case study

The planning activity of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) collection networks is a topic of interest for researchers and managers, due to both the complexity of the problem and its important practical implications, in accordance with the guidelines that recent laws have addressed in a large number of industrialized countries. Nevertheless, even if these new legislation directives aim to reduce the critical effects of human activities on the environment, approaches for coupling the planning phase of a WEEE transportation network with the analysis of its environmental impact are rare in literature. Specifically, in this paper, a WEEE transportation network in the North of Italy (precisely, in the Reggio Emilia district) is addressed by means of an integrated solution approach. The methodological steps regard the following topics: data collection techniques, vehicle routing methods and heuristic procedures for creating different system scenarios, simulation modelling for obtaining solutions satisfying technical performance measures, LCA methodology for assessing the environmental impact of such solutions, multi-criteria decision methods for selecting the best choice under the joint technical and environmental perspective.