This research deals with a vehicle scheduling problem for the sludge collection strategies which might be solved via quantitative analysis and cost evaluations schemes. This problem can be modeled as a kind of capacitated vehicle routing pick-up problems. With the aim of establishing operation schedule of vehicles and analyzing the total cost under considering various assumptions and realistic restrictions of the sludge collection problem, we propose a heuristic method based on the genetic algorithm in conjunction with the sweep algorithm and the 4-opt algorithm. Finally, we present the cost effective operation schedule that can be used as the managing tool for the sludge treatment plant of the multi-purpose dam.