Prediction of Waste Generation and Disposal Using System Dynamics Modeling
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Solid waste management plays an important role in protecting the environment, the health
system and minimizing biological threats, so serious actions need to be taken to control and
manage these threats on the environment. Different situations such as seasonal changes and
cities policies have had effects on solid waste generation and disposal behaviors, therefore
the proper prediction of the amount of waste disposal is needed to improve the waste
management system. In this thesis, the system dynamics (SD) model is used to predict the
amount of waste generation and disposal in Canada. Different types of wastes are considered
in the SD model. Gross domestic product (GDP) and population are the socio-economic
variables that have a significant effect on the amount of waste generation and disposal in the
SD model. The developed model can show the relationship between variables to predict the
amount of waste generation and disposal, so by using the SD model with a better attitude,
governments and organizations can make decisions to design an appropriate model for waste
management and apply it in the system. In this thesis, the most significant contribution is
using effective variables such as GDP, population, and education to predict the amount of
waste generation and disposal seasonally and yearly. The results show that the increasing
and decreasing trends in the amount of waste disposal from the prediction value depend on
the variables in the model. Population and GDP are the main effective variables in the SD
model, in which waste disposal will increase in the future as the population increases.
Therefore, by the effect of various policies and conditions, there will be different trends in
waste management.