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An Agent-Based Modeling Approach for Informing the U.S. Plastic Waste Management Process

Authors:
Yuanhui Huang
Tugba Karabiyik
Aasakiran Madamanchi
Alejandra J. Magana

Keywords: Agent-Based Modeling; NetLogo; Recycling; Plastic Waste Management

Abstract:
Recycling is one of the most significant issues in the waste management system. As the use and demand for plastics increase every year, finding efficient and environment-friendly solutions to handle the plastics in the plastic waste management system gets more challenging. There are economic, environmental, and educational factors affecting plastic waste management. This paper investigates the effects of educational campaigns and system-wide improvement. For this, we used an Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation approach in the NetLogo environment. We provided various scenarios in the current plastics waste life cycle using a real dataset to validate our model, which was from the American Chemistry Council and the National Association for PET Container Resources from 2018. We found that education, technology, and infrastructure changes should be considered holistically to overcome this problem at a system level.

Pages: 65 to 71

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2021

Publication date: October 3, 2021

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4537

ISBN: 978-1-61208-898-3

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Dates: from October 3, 2021 to October 7, 2021