Evaluation of Construction Materials Waste Disposal Methods using Multi Criteria Decision Analysis

Abstract

Construction industry is the most important sector that contributes to the economic growth of a nation. However materials waste resulting from construction activities represents a threat to the ecological system and affects the sustainability of the construction industry negatively. Consequently a reliable waste disposal method should be selected to avoid any adverse environmental and human impacts. There are many methods to discard materials waste such as landfills, incineration, recycling, reuse and reduction. Each method has its own features, characteristics and effects on environment and human health in addition the selection of the appropriate method depends mainly on the nature of the waste. The common and preferred method by construction companies is landfills, but this method affects environment and human health harmfully. The aim of this study is to evaluate waste disposal methods in terms of energy consumption, risk of pollution, practicability, quantity of waste, cost efficiency, favorability, effectiveness, quality in managing waste and environmental effects. The evaluation was made using Fuzzy Promethee which is the most well-known tool of Multi criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). The analysis ranked reduction of materials waste as the best alternative followed by reuse and recycling according to the weights and the majority of criterias specified while the incineration ranked as fifth and landfills was ranked as the last alternative, which is not preferred for the environmental health.