Prioritization of Waste Disposal Methods using Analytical Hierarchy Process

Increase of municipal waste which mainly consists of domestic waste and, in other words, environmentaly biodegradable materilas, pose serious challenges to the selection of efficient disposal methods every year. Lack of comprehensive data set as well as uncertainty in some cases make decision making on waste disposal method selection more complicated and requires a more efficient waste treatment system.
In this study, the hierarchical analysis process was used to assess and prioritize waste disposal methods. Considered methods were: composting, incineration, segregation and sanitary landfilling of urban waste. The criteria for evaluation of options included: waste synthesis, environmental issues and costs.
According to the results obtained from analysis of collected information, environmental issues with the relative value of 0.778 were the most important criterion to be considered. Finally, the waste segregation and sanitary landfilling with the absolute value of 0.444 proved to be the best option. Compost production and incineration methods were ranked next, respectively. The inconsistency rate for all comparisons was 0.1 which is considered acceptable.
Considering the small difference between the final values obtained for sanitary landfill and compost production methods, both should be studied more closely. The studies on waste synthesis in different parts of the country confirm the findings of this study.