Abstract

Household waste management based on the traditional take-make-dispose model has had a negative impact on landfills, resulting in pollution of the land, air, and water. Thus, authorities worldwide are attempting to mitigate this impact through various measures. In this context, treating household organic waste for composting presents an opportunity to reduce and recover waste disposed of in landfills. This paper presents an efficient strategic–tactical logistics network design to optimize household organic waste collection, processing in composting piles at production plants, and compost distribution for minimizing location, processing, and transportation costs. A mixed integer linear programming model is presented to develop an efficient organic waste logistics design. A real case study is solved in the commune of Quilpué, Chile. An extensive set of computational experiments provides decision-makers with insights into how our approach yields efficient solutions for OW network designs. The results highlight the importance of an accurate organic waste logistics design for cost reduction, with location costs being the most significant cost item, followed by transportation and processing costs. Additionally, we vary different input parameters, with the processing time and number of piles per plant being the most critical, as these parameters impact the number of located plants needed to process the organic waste. Moreover, beyond economic savings, the proposed organic waste logistics network supports environmental co-benefits, including reduced methane emissions and extended landfill lifespan, thereby contributing to more sustainable urban waste management. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd