İstanbul için tıbbi atık bertaraf alternatiflerinin bulanık çok ölçütlü karar verme yaklaşımları ile değerlendirilmesi

Today, as in all other organizations, the amount of waste generated in the health-care institutions is rising due to their extent of service. This waste from health-care institutions shows permanent features in the air, water and soil and disturbs the ecological balance. In this regard, one of the most important problems encountered in Istanbul, is the disposal of health-care waste from health-care institutions. The purpose of this study, is to determine the most appropriate health-care waste disposal alternative for Istanbul.In this study, ?incineration?, "steam sterilization ","microwave" and ?landfill? are taken into consideration as health-care waste disposal alternatives for Istanbul. They are evaluated by ", the hierarchical fuzzy MDCM algorithm proposed by Karsak and Ahiska (2005) and the hierarchical fuzzy ranking by similarity to ideal solution (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution - TOPSIS) method proposed by the Kahraman et al. (2007). A hierarchical evaluation structure including economic, environmental, technical and social criteria and their sub-criteria are employed to evaluate the alternatives.The rankings obtained from two MCDM methods appear to be very close. Applying both methods, we obtain ?steam sterilization? as the best alternative and it is followed by ?microwave?. Non-incineration technologies take the first and second rankings as the best alternative disposal technology for Istanbul since they appear to emit fewer pollutants and generate non-hazardous residues. Furthermore, ?landfill? is an economic alternative compared with other alternatives, however, due to its several drawbacks for the environment and public health, it should only be used in a limited extent. It is also concluded that like landfilling, ?incineration? ranks after non-incineration alternative technologies due to its high costs, adverse environmental and health impacts.