The Use of Decision Support Systems for Evaluating Municipal Solid Waste Management Options

The problems caused by poorly managed wastes that occur anywhere in any region of the world, are very similar in almost every part of the world. As a result of this, waste problem should be globally evaluated as valuable resources. Therefore, it is very important to conduct the correct solid wastes management (SWM) options with the rules and limit values determined within the borders of the nations. Local governments are responsible of the decision and assessment steps and should consider the global values, criteria determined within the framework of national legislation, as well as their local dynamics to determine the most ideal waste management option. The problem becomes more complicated as the criteria/variables/uncertainties increase. At this point, in order to make planning right and eliminate the complexity, the implementation of multi-criteria decision-making systems which is one of the "system configuration models" makes easier to get the decisions by evaluating many factors separately on a model. In this study, various multi-criteria decision-making models in use for selecting SWM option will be evaluated. The current examples and problems of SWM options will be explored and evaluated by considering economic, social, technological and legal factors. Also, an example of 'Analytical Hierarchy Model' which is a multi-criteria decision-making model will be given by comparing 4 different scenarios; landfilling, incineration, recycling and composting of municipal solid waste to determine the most ideal method.