Utilization of different decision making techniques for development of municipal solid waste management systems

A sustainable solid waste management system planning is a complex and an interdisciplinary subject, which requires the consideration of technical, environmental, economical, social and political factors. In this thesis, all of the stages which should be required for development of solid waste management system in a city were taken into consideration with different techniques. For this purpose, physical and chemical analysis of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in Eskişehir were carried out and optimum waste management and recycling system were determined according to these analyses results, and waste collection and transportation routes were obtained and finally landfill site selection realized.According to solid waste analyses, it was found that the percentages of the components of the solid waste in Eskişehir were: food wastes 67 %, paper-cardboard 10 %, plastics 5.6 %, glass 2.5 %, metals 1.3 %, ash 4 % and miscellaneous 9.6 %. According to waste characterization results, five different scenarios for MSW management in Eskişehir were assessed by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and ELECTRE III techniques and the structure and application of the decision support system by using Lingo 9.0 optimization software realized. It is determined that the scenario to be preferred for the city of Eskişehir should be S3 (15% recycling+77% composting + 8% landfilling). Recycling wastes should firstly be separated from other wastes at home and then recycling centers should be installed and finally remaining wastes should be separated in a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) according to Analytic Network Process (ANP) and ELECTRE III studies. The route of MSW collection and transportation routes were designated by Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and mathematical modeling and important reduction in distances of available routes was realized. Finally, site selection for MSW landfill in Eskişehir was realized by GIS, remote sensing, ANP and ELECTRE III techniques.