Identification of waste packaging profiles using fuzzy logic
Introduction
The 20th century society requires a great deal of satisfaction provided by means of industrialization and marketing processes. These processes represent the exploitation of natural resources and the generation of large amounts of waste with different compositions. Grodzińska-Jurczak et al. (2004) point in that this can be attributed to a boom in product packaging (mainly plastic).
Therefore, the consumption practice of our society in this century causes problems of contamination by the amount of waste that it generates without recovering the value which they have as residue. On this matter Tsiliyannis (2005) indicates that the packaging waste constitutes a significant component of the municipal residues based on its volume.
Thus, the generation of packaging waste is related to consumerism, closely related to the system of basic needs in which modern society exerts influence to drag the consumer into the disposable culture (Ojeda, 2005).
The wastes produced by human activity, lose their value when discarded. McDougall et al. (2004) indicate that the lack of value is related to the often unknown mixed composition of the waste. Therefore, waste segregation generally increases its value when there are possible uses for the recovered materials.
At present, consumption is one of the largest distractions of society because each family tries to satisfy its needs in the most practical and possible way (Ojeda, 2006). Likewise, waste generation continues to increase because the market economy offers a larger quantity of disposable products, which in addition are offered in a wide variety of designs and of packaging, generating packaging wastes and additional packing such as bags, cans, cardboard, glass, plastic, wood, paper, aluminum and tetra-pack among others, generally thrown away in the waste. Calver (2004) indicates that the transformation packaging is due to the changing lifestyle of consumers. Packaging is essential in modern society as it allows an enormous variety of products to reach the consumer intact, in proper hygienic conditions and general with pertinent information regarding the brand, the product and its usage.
Packaging waste represents around 17% of urban solid waste by weight and 3% of the total waste flow. In recent years, this percentage has undergone an important increase as a result of the changes produced in the habits of consumers and the types of commercial distribution, which seem to favor more and more the packaging of products and in smaller quantities (individual portions, product units, small packs, etc.).
Packaging is a material meant to provide specific services, to contain, protect, transport and preserve a product. Therefore, its function will depend on the way the different needs for which they have been created will be satisfied. In this sense, Vidales (2003) indicates that since its first commercial appearance to the present time, packing has become an element very useful within the complex network that has been woven to satisfy many needs of human beings. For that reason it is important to analyze the generation of packaging wastes taking as a reference the characteristics of generators, which in this case is the family. To investigate the generation and composition of packaging that are commonly found in domestic waste, represents a challenge for the waste management research. As the composition of packaging materials, the function of the packaging and the volume generated, among others, helps to propose strategies for waste management practices. In this sense, it is important to find ways of analyzing the problem in order to offer alternative solutions. Therefore, in this paper, fuzzy logic is applied, being a tool which has been tested in expert systems (Jian-Da et al., 2007) and in other applications (Chang, 1997, Mohamed and Côté, 1999, Yukun and Yufeng, 2006, Ami et al., 2008, Pei-Chann and Chen-Hao, 2008, Shih-Ming and Shyi-Ming, 2008).
Fuzzy inference systems have also been applied in the field of solid waste. Chen and Ni-Bin (2000) developed a dynamic model by applying fuzzy theory to predict waste generation in an urban area taking a limited number of samples. Al-Jarrah and Abu-Qdais (2006) used an intelligent system based in the fuzzy inference system to approach the problem of selecting a site for a sanitary landfill. In another study, Nie et al. (2007) developed and applied a model for the planning of a solid waste management system under uncertainty, using Interval-Parameter Fuzzy-Robust programming (IFRP).
In this study, fuzzy logic is applied because it happens to work with mixed data type (quantitative and qualitative) of two different database structures. Fuzzy logic works with rules to generate knowledge from the databases, and the rules are recognized as an effective and natural means to transmit knowledge between humans, to make and to justify decisions (Moreno et al., 2006).
One of the problems which the experts in solid waste face, is to know the waste generation rates and the composition of the waste, for that reason it is important to work with tools that advance knowledge about the household generation behaviors extracting information from existing databases which have been developed.
One of the types of wastes that are generated is packaging; therefore fuzzy logic is applied to investigate the profiles of generation by family, considering that it involves qualitative and quantitative variables. This tool is adapted to produce generation profiles of the amount and weight of packaging as a function of family characteristics.
Section snippets
Methodology
In order to complete this study, the results of a research carried out by Ojeda (2007) were analyzed. This research was conducted in three neighborhoods of the city of Mexicali, which were selected for their socioeconomic stratum (high, medium and low). The research was done in these three neighborhoods, with the waste generated by the selected families during 8 consecutive days.
The sampling work for this research was done in three stages. In the first stage, a survey was used in order to learn
Results
When applying fuzzy logic tools to restructure the collected information in the two databases, a matrix with input and output data was obtained.
The presented results belong to the matrix in Table 2, which was created to analyze data from 123 households and the generation of packaging of each household per type of material. Data related to packaging generation from 850 bags collected for the sampling were analyzed. Of the total number of households analyzed, 26% belong to the low stratum, 48% to
Discussion and conclusion
One of the main problems encountered when studying household solid waste is to obtain all household data and manage the components of the variables constantly varying, which makes it uncertain and complex. In this application, the variable family structure is very complex as time produces a constant variation; for example, the members of a family may increase their number when a new member is born, gets married or it may decrease if a member dies.
The other variable included is income, which has
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