Group assessment of key indicators of sustainable waste management in developing countries.

Decision makers in developing countries are struggling to solve the present problems of solid waste management. Prioritisation and ranking of the most important indicators that influence the waste management system is very useful for any decision maker for the future planning and implementation of a sustainable waste management system. The aim of this study is to evaluate key indicators and their related sub-indicators in a group decision-making environment. In order to gain insight into the subject it was necessary to obtain the qualified opinions of decision makers from different countries who understand the situation in the sector of waste management in developing countries. An assessment is performed by 43 decision makers from both developed and developing countries, and the applied methodology is based on a combined use of the analytic hierarchy process, from the multi-criteria decision-making set of tools, and the preferential voting method known as Borda Count, which belongs to social choice theory. Pairwise comparison of indicators is performed with the analytic hierarchy process, and the ranking of indicators once obtained is assessed with Borda Count. Detailed analysis of the final results showed that the Institutional-Administrative indicator was the most important one, with the maximum weight as derived by both groups of decision makers. The results also showed that the combined use of the analytic hierarchy process and Borda Count contributes to the credibility and objectivity of the decision-making process, allowing its use in more complex waste management group decision-making problems to be recommended.

Evaluation of key driver categories influencing sustainable waste management development with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP): Serbia example.

The problems of waste management have become increasingly complex in recent decades. The increasing amount of generated waste, adopted legislation in the field of waste management, administrative issues, economic impacts and social awareness are important drivers in achieving a sustainable waste management system. However, in practice, there are many other drivers that are often mutually in conflict. The purpose of this research is to define the precise driver and their corresponding sub-drivers, which are relevant for developing a waste management system and, on the basis of their importance, to determine which has the predominant influence on the slow development of a waste management system at the national and regional level, within the Republic of Serbia and similar countries of southeast Europe. This research presents two levels of decision making: the first is a pair-wise comparison of the drivers in relation to the goal and the second is a pair-wise comparison of the sub-drivers in relation to the driver and in relation to the goal. Results of performed analyses on the waste management drivers were integrated via the decision-making process supported by an analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The final results of this research shows that the Institutional-Administrative driver is the most important for developing a sustainable waste management system.

Application of MFA as a decision support tool for waste management in small municipalities--case study of Serbia.

In this paper, attention is shifted from larger cities and regions to the important role of small municipalities in large-scale capacity waste management systems. The motivation of this analysis is to understand how small municipalities can be prepared for future inclusion in regional waste management. For the first time, solutions that include integrated treatment of municipal, agricultural, and industrial waste generated by small-scale municipalities are developed and assessed. For this purpose, five small Serbian municipalities with populations up to 30,000 inhabitants were chosen as case studies. The methodology integrates field data with material flow analysis (MFA) to analyze and evaluate future scenarios. A set of indicators which reflect the goals of waste management, including the total costs, was chosen for scenario comparison and evaluation. It was found that delivering generated waste to regional waste management centers can result in the most affordable environmental benefits for the representative municipalities. More advanced solutions, which include composting and joint treatment of municipal, agricultural, and industrial waste, can contribute to reaching waste management goals, but are more costly (217% and 652% comparing to delivering generated waste to regions). These results can be regarded as a representative for similar municipalities and can serve to support pre-planning decisions in other countries with problems in establishing regional waste management systems.