A multi-criteria decision making model for the optimal planning of municipal solid waste under uncertainty

Abstract

This paper presents a decision making model to effectively allocate the flow of waste under the restrictions of transportation, inventory holdings, waste treatment and disposal operations. The model considers the objectives of minimising total cost and delivery time as well as maximising the revenue generated from the waste treatment. To handle the uncertainties waste generation rates are considered as normal random variables. Weighted fuzzy programming is used to generate the compromise solutions. To illustrate and justify the applicability and efficiency of proposed model, a numerical illustration is also provided. Finally, different set of solutions are also obtained based on varying weights or preferences assigned to different objective functions. The proposed network involves all of the links included in a waste management system from the waste generators to the disposals and therefore is highly useful for decision makers to increase the efficiency of the existing waste management systems. On the practical concern, the proposed model also provides an avenue to explore the decision making when different priorities are taken into consideration for different objectives. The model could be advanced further by considering stochastic or fuzzy uncertainties and incorporating multi-level, multi-waste concepts.