Abstract
Within the scope of PlastiCity, an Interreg2Seas project (2019-2022), a set of scenarios were developed
for the collection of plastic waste in the urban environments of Ghent (Belgium), Douai (France), The
Hague (The Netherlands), and Southend-on-Sea (UK). This included the exploration of alternative
vehicles like CargoBikes and electro-vans, in comparison to conventional diesel-powered refuse
collection vehicles. For each city, we developed an individual scenario and executed optimisations to
compare different collection strategies and frequencies in terms of distance travelled, time used, as well
as costs and emissions generated. We used OptiFlow, a logistics optimisation software made available
by Conundra, a startup from Ghent University. The main challenge was the unavailability of realistic
data on plastic waste volumes for different types of small and medium businesses and organisations in
these urban environments, which was at least partially due to pandemic restrictions. Thus, our modelling
is mostly to be understood as ways to explore different scenarios and constraints, such as a very limited
loading capacity on CargoBikes.