Selection of municipal solid waste treatment technology using grey-OPA method

Due to increasing population, urbanisation and industrialisation along with rising environmental threats, municipal solid waste (MSW) has become an alarming issue, especially in the developing countries. Recently, disposal and treatment of MSW has been considered as a challenging task because of emission of greenhouse gases, health problems, contaminated resources, shortage of land and infrastructure, and social barriers. It can be addressed using multi-criteria decision making techniques, with contradictory criteria, alternative solutions and multiple stakeholders with varying interests. This paper solves an MSW treatment technology selection problem by integrating grey system theory with ordinal priority approach (G-OPA), considering landfill, composting, incineration, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis and refuse-derived fuel combustion as the alternatives, and investment cost, operating cost, environmental risks, emissions, social acceptance, employment potential, technical reliability and power consumption as the criteria. G-OPA method can simultaneously calculate weights of the participating experts, criteria and alternatives in presence of ambiguous and incomplete data. It identifies investment cost as the most significant criterion, while incineration and refuse-derived fuel combustion are picked out as the top two prioritised technologies. The outcome of this paper would help the policymakers in framing appropriate MSW management strategies for sustainable environment through more informed decision with minimum computation effort.