ABSTRACT
Five types of medical waste disposal technologies that are currently applied in our country were analyzed and compared such as the rotary kiln incineration method, pyrolysis method, high-temperature steam sterilization method, chemical disinfection method, and microwave disinfection method. The five methods were quantitatively evaluated and screened using an analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Based on this process, the ranking weights of optimal and suboptimal alternatives were studied using sensitivity analysis. The results show that the rotary kiln incineration and pyrolysis methods are presently the most widely used technologies for medical waste disposal in our country. The AHP shows that the comprehensive benefits of high-temperature steam sterilization in medical waste disposal are the best compared with the other four methods in terms of social, environmental, technological, and economic factors, followed by the chemical disinfection method. The sensitivity analysis shows that the change points of the guideline layer factors that lead to the change of the alternatives are the social factors (0.2100), environmental factors (0.3500), technical factors (0.1200), and economic factors (0.2400). Subcriteria factors have less influence on the weight ranking of the alternatives.
