Abstract
Reverse logistics problems arising in municipal waste management are both wide-ranging and varied. The usual collection
system in UE countries is composed of two phases. First, citizens leave their refuse at special collection areas where different
types of waste (glass, paper, plastic, organic material) are stored in special refuse bins. Subsequently, each type of waste
is collected separately and moved to its final destination (a recycling plant or refuse dump). The present study focuses on
the problem of locating these collection areas. We establish the relationship between the problem, the set covering problem
and the MAX-SAT problem and then go on to develop a genetic algorithm and a GRASP heuristic to, respectively, solve
each formulation. Finally, the quality of the algorithms is tested in a computational experience with real instances from the
metropolitan area of Barcelona, as well as a reduced set of set covering instances from the literature.