Investigation of recyclable packaging waste collection-separation facilities (CSF) efficiencies with a hybrid model proposal

With the increase of income and welfare levels of the society after the industrial revolution, it increased its demand for packaged products which fulfill many functions such as promotion and information besides the protection function of the products. With the increase in the world population, packaging wastes have been increasing day by day and threatening the environment. The negative impact of packaging waste on the environment and the economic losses caused by the use of virgin resources have made the recycling process mandatory. The success of the process of collecting and separating the packaging waste, which is the most important step in the recycling process, depends on the effective management of these processes. Collection-Separation Facilities (CSF) are responsible for collecting and separating the packaging wastes according to their categories in Turkey. When performing activities and when making decisions in CSFs, many criteria such as the amount of used packaging waste, the number of personnel required for collecting and separating, and the amount of equipment used in collecting and separating are taken into consideration. This situation in studies on TATs require the use of Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods. In this study, Multi Criteria Data Envelopment Analysis (MCDEA) modeled with Multi-Objective Linear Programming (MOLP), which is a Multi-Objective Decision Making (MODM) methods, has been solved by using Global Criterion Method. MCDEA consists of a MOLP problem developed to improve the discrimination power of classical DEA. However, three different efficiencies obtained as a result of the MCDEA solution lead to the necessity of the decision maker to make a choice and therefore bring about the possibility of human error. The proposed Global- Multi Criteria Data Envelopment Analysis (G-MCDEA) converts the three efficiency values achieved in the result of MCDEA into a single efficiency value by solving it with the Global Criterion Method which does not require preference information. Thus, by eliminating the possibility of human error, decisions will be taken by quantitative decision making techniques. In this study, an efficiency evaluation of 67 TATs that carried out the collection and separation process in Central Anatolia was conducted. The efficiency evaluation was started by creating a pool of variables in line with the studies on the waste management system and the opinions received from the experts (environmental engineers and TAT managers). Then, in order to determine the inputs and outputs from this pool of variables by means of an expert opinion form, opinions were received from the instructors who were doing work on DEA and environmental engineer instructors. Finally, the correlation analysis was performed to determine whether the input and output variables obtained from the expert opinion forms were suitable for the model, and the inputs and outputs used in the model were determined. During the evaluation process, within the analysis, global criteria method based G-MCDEA model that suggested in this study is used. With the G-MCDEA model, the three objective functions were converted into a single objective function and the normalized degree of the distance from the ideal solution proposed in this study was calculated for each Decision Making Unit (DMU). With this calculation, which objective of G-MCDEA was took closer to global effeciency is determined. The results were evaluated and recommendations were made to the stakeholders (Municipalities, Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation, Instructors, TAT Managers) and facilities.