Abstract
The collection, transport and disposal of solid waste, which is a highly visible and important municipal service, involves a large expenditure but receives, scant attention. This problem is even more crucial for large cities in developing countries due to the hot weather. Solid waste management is a very pertinent issue facing municipal and local authorities in Ghana. Due to the population growth and the changing lifestyles of Ghanaians, the amounts of waste generated has increased drastically over the years. This paper presents cluster-first-route-second heuristic method to generate feasible solution to an extended Capacitated Arc Routing Problem (CARP) in Kwadaso, a suburb of Kumasi, Ghana. The proposed method was compared with existing schedules with respect to cost and distance travelled. The adoption of the proposed heuristic resulted in a reduction of 40% vehicle distance travelled per week.