Sustainable Location of Reverse Vending Machines

Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) may play a fundamental role in a circular economy, ensuring materials circulate and maintain their greatest utility and value for as long as possible. Location is key to their success and aligning it with regional sustainable development adds complexity to the decision. In this paper we link sustainability with the location of RVMs to reveal, through mathematical models, the inherent trade-offs involved in simultaneously managing the three pillars of sustainability—social, economic, and environmental—when locating RVMs. Spatial interaction behaviours are employed to represent the demand for RVMs, with multiple allocation incorporated into the proposed models. Instead of relying on the common assumption of known and constant demand, we develop a demand function that accounts for both the attractiveness of RVMs and their distances to users. This approach provides a more accurate representation of effective demand patterns, thereby adding a novel contribution to literature. Additionally, real-world data from specific territory is used to illustrate the policy, managerial and operational challenges involved in determining the location of RVMs. The results obtained pinpoint the compromising locations for RVMs aiming the three pillars of sustainability, delivering to the decision makers the balance between them, as well as the impacts of the underlying political options on the location decision. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of the parameters used is performed to assess the robustness of the solutions found.