  Medical waste recycling and treatment has gradually drawn concerns from the
whole society, as the amount of medical waste generated is increasing
dramatically, especially during the pandemic of COVID-19. To tackle the
emerging challenges, this study designs a reverse logistics system architecture
with three modules, i.e., medical waste classification & monitoring module,
temporary storage & disposal site (disposal site for short) selection module,
as well as route optimization module. This overall solution design won the
Grand Prize of the "YUNFENG CUP" China National Contest on Green Supply and
Reverse Logistics Design ranking 1st. This paper focuses on the design of the
route optimization module. In this module, a route optimization problem is
designed considering transportation costs and multiple risk costs (e.g.,
environment risk, population risk, property risk, and other accident-related
risks). The Analytic Hierarchy Process is employed to determine the weights for
each risk element, and a customized genetic algorithm is developed to solve the
route optimization problem. A case study under the COVID-19 pandemic is further
provided to verify the proposed model. Limited by length, detailed descriptions
of the whole system and the other modules can be found at
https://shorturl.at/cdY59.
