Municipal solid waste management via multi-criteria decision making methods: A case study in Istanbul, Turkey

In contemporary era, solid waste management has become an important issue for developing countries. Rapidly increasing population, higher life-standards and technological advancements consistently increase the amount and the diversity of solid waste. In such a complicated environment, municipal authorities need to develop the most effective disposal solution to manage the ever-growing municipal solid waste. In this study various disposal techniques that are utilized globally are investigated and different scenarios that could be applicable to Turkey are created. These scenarios might also be implementable for other Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries. For that purpose, 8 solid waste disposal scenarios were evaluated via 7 criteria which are determined according to the opinions of the experts from the field. Towards this end, three different multi-criteria decision-making methods, namely, Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) I and PROMETHEE II were utilized for the scenario evaluation. Consequently, the most appropriate and feasible scenarios are determined. The results indicate the prominence of recycling and landfill technologies for developing countries. The results are consistent by means of all the three methodologies that are used.