Towards a Software Tool Supporting Urban Decision Makers in Locating and Sizing the Household Garbage Accumulation Points Within Cities

Abstract

Locating and sizing garbage bins for the separate accumulation of household solid waste within urban areas is of primary interest for the local administrations that so far lack adequate IT support. The paper highlights the versatility of a method for solving such a problem, which involves both standard and geographic data. Implementation of the proposal, centered around a spatial database, goes in the direction of developing a supporting software tool to the officials responsible for the management of municipal solid waste. They are offered a dual-mode display of the results: one tabular (the standard format featured by relational databases) and the other based on the metaphor of geographic maps, the latter being particularly useful in capitalizing on the spatial component of the problem.