Study on the Optimization of Agricultural Production Waste Recycling Network under the Concept of Green Cycle Development
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- For the title, suggest replace "re-cycling" with "recycling".
- For the introduction section, suggest to add more highlights of the contribution/results.
- Suggest to make the bond font more consistent. Perhaps add a brief explanation if the bold font indicates chromosome or anything special?
- The line spacing in the draft is inconsistent.
- Please check the in-line formulas. Some formulas (currently formatted as mathematical equations) within the text can probably be replaced by regular text with superscripts and subscripts. For example, the Pc in line 363.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1
Comments
Point 1: For the title, suggest replacing "re-cycling" with "recycling".
Response 1: In response to your question, we have replaced "re-cycling" with "recycling".
Point 2: For the introduction section, suggest adding more highlights of the contribution/results.
Response 2: In response to your question about adding contributions to the introduction, we have added a research contribution section to the introduction, which fully summarizes the research contributions and innovations of this paper and is highlighted in yellow font.
Point 3: Suggest making the bond font more consistent. Perhaps add a brief explanation if the bold font indicates chromosome or anything special?
Response 3: In response to your suggestion to make the bold font more consistent, we have checked the whole thing and our original intent was to emphasize by bold font and not to use the black font to indicate chromosomes or anything else in particular. For the rest of the bolded sections in this paper, we have modified them and highlighted them in yellow.
Point 4: The line spacing in the draft is inconsistent.
Response 4: For the raised issue of inconsistent line spacing in the manuscript, we are strictly following the template given in the sustainability author guidelines for typesetting, and we are checking and correcting this issue as a whole as it arises.
Point 5: Please check the in-line formulas. Some formulas (currently formatted as mathematical equations) within the text can probably be replaced by regular text with superscripts and subscripts—for example, the Pc in line 363.
Response 5: In response to your question, we checked the formula in the full text and changed the Pc from mathematical format to normal text format.
Reviewer 2 Report
I found the paper hard to read because of its very technical language. While some statements are in my option “unnecessarily” expressed too simple (e.g. the “eating” and “spitting out” metaphor”).
In total the paper reads too technical for the interdisciplinary readership of the journal Sustainability. In this format the manuscript might better fit into a journal with more focus on methodological aspects.
My conclusion from this paper is, that the economic recycling requires optimized transport and that algorithm can be developed to reach optimized transport.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: I found the paper hard to read because of its very technical language. While some statements are in my option “unnecessarily” expressed too simply (e.g. the “eating” and “spitting out” metaphor”).
Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion. In response to your question, we have removed this sentence from the abstract, reworked it, and highlighted it in yellow.
Point 2: In total, the paper reads too technical for the interdisciplinary readership of the journal Sustainability. In this format, the manuscript might better fit into a journal with more focus on methodological aspects.
Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. In response to your question, our view is that since this paper starts from the concept of converting agricultural waste into a new green energy source, it combines the concept of green cycle development and the relevant theories in modern system engineering to optimize the study of agricultural production waste recycling network. Therefore we believe that our manuscript is very much in line with the theme of the sustainability journal.
Point 3: My conclusion from this paper is, that economic recycling requires optimized transport and that algorithm can be developed to reach optimized transport.
Response 3: Thank you for your suggestion. For this issue you have raised, in the future, we will continue to build on our current research and develop algorithms to achieve better optimization.
Reviewer 3 Report
The subject of the paper is is scientifically important, collection and transport are key factors to make recycling viable. Agricultural waste has specificities that should be highlighted in the text to justify the study. Overall, the paper was well written. I will not be able to give an opinion on the calculations and the mathematical model used, as it is not my area of ​​research.
Some questions could be better put in the text, for example:
1) In abstract, what is “agricultural waste eating”? Make the information clearer.
2) In abstract, what is "spitting out" new green energy? Here is informing that the type of recycling studied is the transformation of agricultural residues into energy? Make the information clearer in the text.
3) If an urban waste were studied, could the mathematical model be the same? What is the difference in the collection and transport of agricultural waste to urban waste in the use of the mathematical model used?
4) The efficiency of a recycling network depends on the technology that will be carried out: whether composting, energy recycling or mechanical recycling. I suggest making a comment on the subject in the paper.
5) Page 5, line 172-173: in: “same type of transport vehicles are used to carry out the recycling work”. Which recycling work are you referring to? Remembering that recycling is a process carried out to transform material.
6) Page 5, line 192-194: In “same recycling and treatment capacity..” what means recycling? What means treatment? The information must be clear in the text.
7) The use of “genetic algorithm solution” was not clear in the text, maybe it could be commented on in the introduction
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
The subject of the paper is scientifically important, collection and transport are key factors to make recycling viable. Agricultural waste has specificities that should be highlighted in the text to justify the study. Overall, the paper was well written. I will not be able to give an opinion on the calculations and the mathematical model used, as it is not my area of research. Some questions could be better put in the text, for example:
Point 1: In the abstract, what is “agricultural waste eating”? Make the information clearer.
Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion. In response to your question, we have removed this sentence from the abstract, reworked it, and highlighted it in yellow.
Point 2: In the abstract, what is "spitting out" new green energy? Here is information that the type of recycling studied is the transformation of agricultural residues into energy. Make the information clearer in the text.
Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. What we are trying to convey is really to inform the reader that the type of recycling we are looking at is the conversion of agricultural residues into energy, probably because our expression was not appropriate, so we have modified it here in the abstract and highlighted it in yellow font.
Point 3: If urban waste were studied, could the mathematical model be the same? What is the difference in the collection and transport of agricultural waste to urban waste in the use of the mathematical model used?
Response 3: Urban waste is the waste generated by urban people in their production and life. The difference between agricultural waste and urban waste is mainly the difference in types and the more complex roads in cities. Since the focus of this paper is to integrate the site selection of agricultural production waste recycling network facilities and the route planning of recycling transportation vehicles into a one-stage optimization problem for solving, constructing an optimization model, selecting the system operation cost minimization as the optimization objective, and combining the advantages of genetic algorithms in solving such problems for model solving. Therefore, the model in this paper is also suitable for the optimization of recycling urban production waste, etc. Therefore, based on your suggestions, in future research, we can focus on urban production waste as the main research, and further in-depth modeling research based on agricultural production waste. In-depth comparison of the specific similarities and differences between the two.
Point 4: The efficiency of a recycling network depends on the technology that will be carried out: whether composting, energy recycling, or mechanical recycling. I suggest making a comment on the subject in the paper.
Response 4: For your proposal that the efficiency of the recycling network depends on the technology carried out, we have added a discussion of production waste treatment technologies for agriculture in the introduction, and the additions are highlighted in yellow in the original text.
Point 5: Page 5, lines 172-173: “same type of transport vehicles are used to carry out the recycling work”. Which recycling work are you referring to? Remember that recycling is a process carried out to transform material.
Response 5: For your question on lines 172-173: "Use the same type of transport vehicles for recycling", recycling refers to the recycling of the waste in rural areas. In this paper, the agricultural production waste generated at the point of generation is abstracted as the same type of items, i.e., agricultural production waste in a broad sense, so the recycling work is mainly for the recycling of the same type of waste in the abstract.
Point 6: Page 5, line 172-173: in: “same type of transport vehicles are used to carry out the recycling work”. Which recycling work are you referring to? Remembering that recycling is a process carried out to transform material.
Response 6: For your proposed lines 192-194: "the same recycling and processing capacity", for here our interpretation is that the main content studied in this paper is that this paper divides the optimization of the agricultural production waste recycling network into two studies of facility siting and transportation vehicle path planning: with the construction and operation of the agricultural production waste recycling system The optimization model of agricultural production waste recycling network site-path (LRP) problem is constructed by minimizing the cost of agricultural production waste recycling system as the optimization objective and by unifying the siting problem and path planning problem. Therefore, the focus of this question is on the cost and path optimization analysis of agricultural production waste, and the recycling and treatment in the hypothesis are not considered to be the focus of our research.
Point 7 Page 5, lines 172-173: in: “same type of transport vehicles are used to carry out the recycling work”. Which recycling work are you referring to? Remember that recycling is a process carried out to transform material.
Response 7: In response to the problem that the use of the genetic algorithm solution you proposed is not clear in the paper, this paper combines the design work of the genetic algorithm with the relevant characteristics of agricultural production waste recycling, uses the genetic algorithm to solve the optimization problem of agricultural production waste recycling network based on the LRP problem, and verifies the feasibility and operability of the model. After consideration, we add the innovations and contributions of the paper in the introduction to explain the application of the genetic algorithm in this paper.
