  With social progress and the development of modern medical technology, the
amount of medical waste generated is increasing dramatically. The problem of
medical waste recycling and treatment has gradually drawn concerns from the
whole society. The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic further brought new
challenges. To tackle the challenges, this study proposes 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
description of architectural design and the module on site selection.
Specifically, regarding system architecture, a framework diagram is provided,
together with brief descriptions of the three proposed modules and a case study
under the COVID-19 epidemic with the customized model. Regarding the disposal
site selection module, a multi-objective optimization model is developed, and
considering different types of waste collection sites (i.e., prioritized large
collection sites and common collection sites), a hierarchical solution method
is developed employing linear programming and K-means clustering algorithms
sequentially. The proposed site selection method is verified with a case study
using real-world data, and compared with the baseline, it can immensely reduce
the daily operational costs and working time. Limited by length, detailed
descriptions of the whole system as well as the remaining medical waste
classification & monitoring module and route optimization module can be found
at https://shorturl.at/cdY59.
